Close your eyes and cast your minds back to the day being a feminist was a relatively easy process – you are a women, you want to be equal to men, ergo feminism suited you. Coming online to discuss feminism was a beautiful, untouched and safe environment where ideas flew around and all was well.

That was last year.

These days, becoming and being a feminist seems to be riddled with endless obstacles – much like the glass ceiling – from friendly fire. Why have we allowed this to happen? Why? I know the saying goes ‘ Don’t blame the victims’ – but you know what, some of you – YES YOU – should be bloody ashamed of yourselves. You’ve turned your back on each other, in order to appease abusers and misogynists. I didn’t become a feminist, to have to tiptoe around EVERYONE and have every tweet, every sentence, every word, criticised and policed within an inch of my life. Yes, sometimes we say some stupid things, that in hindsight we never would have done, and yes, we deserved to be told “You know what, that wasn’t cool – here’s why”. People don’t learn from aggressive insults, people learn from constructive criticism. There is no shame in getting things wrong; there is shame in making that person a target for an endless stream of abuse. Shame on you.

Women from all walks of life are afraid, yes AFRAID, to even tweet on a sodding hashtag (#sharedgirlhood), lest they be hounded and abused by other women and men. I am a woman, I had a girlhood that was consumed and corrupted by the patriarchy – why should I be forced into silence? Why should I, like so many other women across the globe, be silenced by the very people who are supposed to look out for me? WHY, SISTERS, WHY? There is absolutely nothing transphobic about sharing all the SHIT the patriarchy threw at me, all the periods, all the abuse and assaults, all the god forsaken gender stereotypes. I WILL NOT BE SILENCED.

A woman fights for representation on a banknote – she wins. Small victories = big steps for women. Why is this so bad? WHY? As a feminist you don’t have to agree with every single thing that comes out of a fellow feminists mouth or brain, but we, as a sisterhood, stand together – because nobody else has our back. No-one. You greet this great achievement with abuse, abuse and more abuse – some even more horrific than trolls. So the woman in question is white and middle class, so she went to Oxford – big fucking whoop – she did this for ALL OF US. She is a woman, she is a feminist, she is a friend – she deserves our support. No exceptions.

Why are some of you always, always picking on everything a woman does to help feminism – why would you do that? Why is nothing we do ever good enough for you? And do you know what’s even worse? Those that hurl abuse and incite pile-ons haven’t done a single fucking thing for feminism, and yet you pretend like you are the fucking feminist overlords. Stop harping on about ‘reclaiming’ feminism – it was never yours in the first place, nor is it mine. Feminism is a movement, not a tangible object you can take or give – it’s a collective. If you don’t see feminism as a collective, only something you can use to gain – yeah, I’m going there – ‘cookies’, then do bugger off.

Stop shouting, stop abusing, stop piling-on, just stop everything you are doing and LISTEN to each other. If we are at war with each other, then who’s going to go into battle with the patriarchy? Hmm? I can’t hear feminism over the sound of this incessant whining, all I hear is men laughing hysterically at us.

Shame on you.