Why a woman who is not a feminist is a coward. [View all]

Rights are not a sweetmeat granted to a person at the whim of an all-powerful tyrant, rights are qualities that inhere in us by the very nature of being human. Thus a right cannot be "given" nor "taken," though a right may, under sufficient threat of violence (psychological or physical, it makes no difference) be withheld or denied.

At root, I see feminism as a protest against the denial of right. Big rights and little rights, but overall and most especially what should be obviously a right for all humans, the right to the integrity of one's own person. And a person who would willingly surrender a fundamental right, is by very definition craven. For if we will not fight for our rights, for what will we fight?

The careful reader, however, might just detect the hidden consequence of this thought: for if rights inhere in each and all by virtue of being human, then any human who will not struggle against the denial of right is craven, not just any woman. So I find I have mistitled my little rant indeed. It should read "Why anyone who is not a feminist is a coward."

-- Mal