So, since I'm a feminist...I'm going to vote you the hell up.

I think as a society we're still very much in an "in between" state where we're chipping away at the old structure, but haven't quite erected new social guidelines to take their place. I think a lot of men who are twitchy about "SJWs" and "feminism" sort of subliminally pick this up, but don't know how to put it in words, which might be why it comes out in hatred so often.

Like, I'm glad we're slowly as a society starting to say, "Hey, instead of blaming women who get raped by telling them not to dress in certain ways or go in certain areas, let's teach boys not to rape!" It's important to change how boys and men are raised to interact with women.

But we also need to teach women that it's not right to abuse men, either physically or emotionally. You don't get to take your newfound power as an independent woman and hurt others with it. It doesn't work that way. A strong woman shouldn't belittle and slap her boyfriend or spouse around, it's wrong. A strong woman is not entitled to sex from her lover, any more than he's entitled to it from her...forcing men to have sex is rape. It's not powerful to shame your boyfriend, or brother, or father, or son. If you feel you have to use emotional or physical force towards a guy in your life, as a way to compensate for your physical size or something else, something's gone very wrong.

The traditional image of a good, upstanding man still has these ideas about chivalry and honor going around. Fuck, look at Marvel's Captain America...a character of great honor who is POPULAR as a character even in this modern day. Even with recent decade's dive into "gritty realism" there's still media (movies, books, etc.) that expose men to the idea of personal honor and such. Dads set examples of being men of honor for their sons.

But there's not many role models for being a woman of honor. Women are more often shown role models that are polarized between innocent waif who wouldn't kill a fly, and abusive bitch. It's like society doesn't realize we need these role models yet--or maybe it's because there's not many middle-aged FEMALE characters in media to serve this purpose. So maybe it's intertwined with media still being very male-oriented. We're in the process of tearing down the old structure, but the new isn't entirely there yet. In any case, there's not many examples of a woman being very powerful but also wise with her power.

I mean, there's always just crap human beings who don't give a shit about being a good person. Role models aren't going to do shit for psychos.

But I also think there's a missing social guide for being a powerful woman who knows when to restrain her temper, and when to kick someone's ass with it.

I grew up in an abusive home and most of the time I prefer to run, run, run from conflict. Most of my first 20-odd years was spent being very quiet. I thought I was just quiet. Cowardly, perhaps, given how often I ran from conflict. But even if I was a coward...at least I wasn't hurting others.

When I got out on my own, away from abuse, I learned that I have a temper. Like, 90 percent of the time I'm quiet. And then there's that 10 percent, usually around people I see as weaker than me, or people who have personal codes where I know they won't strike back at me, when I become enraged. Usually because they're fucking up in some way...and I surprise myself with some deep anger particularly if I see some aspect of myself that I already hate reflected in them. Like, if they're doing something stupid...and it's a sort of stupid I've been fighting in myself, or which I conquered in myself a few years back.

And it was a complete shock. I'd never seen myself as having a temper. I had not been in a safe enough area the first 20-odd years of my life to let anger out. Likewise, I didn't have enough experience in dealing with my own anger. I'd always ENTIRELY repressed it.

So compared to a person who was "fiery" from childhood, who spent their first 20 years coming to terms with it, I had no setting but "quiet" or "enraged". A person who has more practice at being angry has more experience at managing angry. I didn't have that experience. No middle ground. And let me tell you, being a coward 90% of the time that also burst into a terrible anger the few times they feel safe is just a hellish set of traits to have in tandem. It's a vile combination. Because a coward with a temper only vents that temper on those weaker than her. And given how far down the social totem pole I am...it's not pretty when it comes out. I'm subversiant to 90% of people...and then in certain situations I turn around and bully the lower 10%. Who are already being shit on by the 90% higher than me. Yay. Go me. (Except not. Coward + temper = terrible human being if the temper is not managed correctly.)

And I think a lot of women are in this state, of handling their temper in an "on" or "off" state with nothing in between, and that's why you see the middle-aged women from hell berating retail cashiers and such. You have women who have always had tempers but who were forced by society to hide it. It takes until they are comfortable in middle age to let it out...except they never trained themselves to control it in a more nuanced fashion because there's no good role models, and women aren't supposed to be angry AT ALL and it's empowering the first time you realize you can be angry.

So it goes back to role-models. I think women aren't given good examples of how to handle expressing a temper or anger with nuance. And we need to educate women that being powerful doesn't mean you get to be abusive.