The Truth about Bigots

The following is an excerpt from one of the chapters from my forthcoming book "Feminist Truths". This is not the final draft of the chapter.



A bigot is a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, often exhibiting intolerance / animosity towards others whom they consider different usually on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, inter-regional prejudice, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Often they have particularly ideology.



In the case of feminism the anti-thesis therefore is a sexist bigot, a person who is intolerant and prejudiced against women... a "woman hater".



The origin of the word bigot in English dates back to at least 1598, via Middle French, and referred to at the time a "religious hypocrite". The exact origin of the word is unknown, but it may be from the German phrase "bei gott"



Etymology aside, sexist bigots are essentially why there is a feminist movement in the first place.



Bigotry is largely a learned behaviour.



We could debate the causes as being influenced by parents, family members, friends, peers, teachers, past lovers, etc... Lots of blame to go around. Although stubborness is often considered a hereditary trait, nobody is born a bigot. Parents teach their kids a variety of behavioural things by accident / design and once children are imprinted with these skills / habits they grow.



Thus a father who hates women will often make sexist comments and impressionable children pick up on these things. By the time they are teenagers these children are either following in their parental footsteps, rebelling against their parents, or both.



One might argue therefore that sexism will never be eradicated simply because bigotry will be passed from one generation to the next... however the degree to which it is passed on is lessened. Each generation is less sexist than the one before because they are also being influenced by friends, teachers, peers and society in general.



As society becomes more focused on equality for women and men, bigotry is reduced in incremental amounts.



We can see this more dramatically overseas in Africa and Asia where feminism is growing at a faster rate and will someday catch up to feminism in Western Culture.



We also know that bigots are being left behind. They are less likely to get married, if they do produce children there are more mothers who are willing to be single mothers now (thanks to government enforced child support payments), which means bigots aren't passing on their faulty beliefs unto their children as often as they used to.



So the good news is that bigots are an endangered species, but will probably always be there.



To some extent we should be secretly thankful to bigots. They keep feminists on their toes and give us something to be angry about. Anger can be an inspiring thing when used in a righteous way.



I'd argue however that you can't let that anger become hate however. That leads down the path of Zealotry / male hating. (*cough cough, hate leads to the Dark Side*)



As feminists we have to be better than the bigots. We have to stand for Truth, Justice and Equality... and to do so we need to behave with honour and virtue without personal bias, unlike the bigots who are ruled only by their hate and prejudices.