Feminist Forms of Justice in the Twenty-First Century Context

Reading the writing by Kristian Williams reminded me of the amount of pride I have for feminist groups, groups who stand up for and support each other in the face of hardships and violence against them. Feminism has always been about the unity of women and other marginalized people. It is easy to find examples of instances where this was not as clearly upheld, such as when it comes to white women versus black women. But experience tells us we accomplish more as a collective than as individuals alone.

The communities Williams writes about serve this purpose: to support victims and survivors of sexual violence and assault. But if these groups were active today in our twenty-first century, North American society, I would worry about the possible repercussions and backlash. Moreover, I would fear the violent situations that could result from confrontations between these community support and activist groups and those from men's rights groups.

In Williams' piece, she quotes another woman from an interview: "When somebody is getting stalked, the whole group would go to the [stalker's] workplace and embarrass him in front of the boss ... and make some direct demands of what he needed to do.  And it would work actually—more than calling the cops." While I am confident these activist groups have supported many survivors and done much good for their communities, shaming tactics could easily go too far. Pack mentality could get carried away and the risk of escalating from verbal taunts to violence is very high.

In addition, with the easy-access of media and technology in today's day, news travels much faster if something goes wrong:

"It was not unusual to hear that "accountability processes never work" or that "they always go wrong." That was not entirely true, but the sentiment reflected several important realities.  First, the processes that go wrong tend to go wrong in spectacular, divisive, disastrous ways, while those that go well are slower, quieter, and less controversial—therefore also, less known and less remembered. "

Because it stories travel much faster across the country—and around the world—now, the likelihood is high that these groups could be attacked by men's rights groups, or any others who (inaccurately) refer to feminists as 'feminazis'. The start-ups of any movements or groups such as those referred to by Williams could give rise to wars in local communities as time progresses.

While the intentions of the activist groups described by Williams are very positive, I fear the implementation of similar groups in today's day and age would be a mistake. There are many more risks involved because of how fast our societies process information, take action, and react. We also see many more public anti-feminist sentiments today and these activist groups could give to greater friction between feminists and anti-feminists.