Thread by @LaraAdamsMille1

My abusive ex talked like this to me and my kids. This is coercive control. This is silencing with fear.

This will not, ultimately, help them.

There is no power like that of women breaking free from an abuser’s control.

Keep talking shit. Every day, more women break free.

https://twitter.com/rooneyrachel/status/1218274104966569985

Women are sincerely, good-faith WORRIED about their rights, their safety, and the response is to threaten them to keep from expressing their fears.

This is abuse. This is control.

This is what we’re here to rebel against. IT’S WHY FEMINISM EXISTS.

I’m not interested in a brand of feminism that teaches women to swallow their fear. If happy, socially acceptable feminism means we have to look the other way if a male abuser belongs to a liberally protected category, then I don’t want it. My conscience doesn’t accept it.

If women must behave and obey to avoid male abuse, then we’re not free. They are still making our rules, writing our scripts. Complying won’t save us (it’s never, ever enough), but, even if it did, fuck compliance! That is never a feminist option.

We cannot set aside this issue of men commanding us to call them women. If we submit to this now, we demonstrate just how much of our world men may control if they only push, manipulate, and punish hard enough.

If we’re ever going to draw a line, we HAVE to draw this one.

When it comes to women and the potential for harm, we, as femists must err on the side of safety.

Err on the side of power.

Err on the side of freedom.

You do not give the benefit of the doubt to serial abusers. They’re the ones who sold you that doubt to begin with.

Feminism can feel complicated sometimes.

It isn’t, though.

Personal ethics can be complicated. Individual situations can be complicated.

But feminism is one thing - it’s a voice, speaking from inside us women, all the time -

It says, “I do NOT accept men as my authority.”