Saw someone genuinely equating “all men are threats” to Islamophobia/anti-Muslim bigotry, using 9/11 as a rhetorical device, the other day, and my body reacted so viscerally before my brain even registered what was going on. The combination of the false equivalence, the implications of such a perspective, how it’s deployed, to whom (to a brown man, Pakistani immigrant, Muslim human rights lawyer who holds all men accountable), and the person who said that (a non-Muslim Western woman) overloaded my senses.

As a sexual assault survivor, an Indonesian Muslim hijabi woman, and neurodivergent, it was a devastating experience.

In what way does being a Muslim, a very visibly Muslim one at that, benefit from a system that places Islam and its believers as default suspects? As a hijabi in a Muslim-majority country, I do have my privileges; I just want to know: how do you think my domestic privileges translate across borders in a way that subjugates and dominates you with impunity, such that the structural discrimination against my religious identity and a specific kind of misogyny experienced by Muslim women that historically became a pretext to bomb a country are equivalent to holding men as a class accountable?

What is the underlying premise guiding those who see the world through eyes that equate systemic accountability with systemic oppression? How do you see the world? How does your conscience accept such a premise?

Never mind. I don’t give a fck about your conscience, actually, or whether or not it’s still functioning well. I hope all bigoted scum in the world fkn choke.

#microagression #misogyny #bigotry #politics #AllMen #classconsciousness #neurodivergence #genderbasedviolence #hyperindividualism #exceptionalism #history #internalisedmisogyny