Do our differences keep us from creating a more revolutionary feminism?

During one of my 1L classes, a professor brought up the #MeToo movement. At the time, the hashtag was appearing all over social media. Our professor asked what we thought about the movement and offered an opinion from on of her female friends who had survived a traumatic and brutal rape.

My professor explained that their friend did not support the #MeToo movement because she did not want to equate her violent rape to someone else's sexual harassment. Not only did she feel like there was no comparison to someone else's non-rape trauma, she believed that participating in the movement by posting "#MeToo" on social media if you had survived a "less" traumatic experience took the focus away from those who survived brutal rapes.

My jaw dropped. At first, I was completely shocked. I could not believe that someone felt that way. From my perspective, the #MeToo movement was an opportunity to band together with other sexual assault survivors.

I myself am a survivor. And I have to admit that I have found myself comparing my trauma to someone else's trauma and thinking, "I am so grateful I didn't have to go through that," or "At least they didn't have to go through what I went through." But why? Is there truly a spectrum? Am I naïve to think we should all be present for one another without having these feelings?

The bottom line is that the experiences of survivors are all different, and there is no comparison among experiences because--as humans--we are all affected differently and have different capacities for processing trauma. However, I don't think anyone would argue with what my professor's friend was saying: her sexual assault is likely more traumatic than other survivor's experiences that did not involve the specific acts she endured.

But why do the differences in our trauma and suffering dictate the integrity of a movement? Why is it that womyn, even within the same struggle, differentiate themselves so that the experiences of some don't seem "traumatic" enough?

Following this class, I tried to understand why this friend felt this way, why the value of this movement felt so much clearer to me than it did to her. I never found an answer, but this narrative recently resurfaced for me.

After reading Susan Chira's Women Don't Think Alike. Why Do We Think They Do?, the shock I felt in my 1L class discussing the #MeToo movement reappeared.

Many womyn, especially older womyn, did not necessarily think Dr. Blasey Ford was lying, but felt that the proper thing to do was suffer in silence the way they had several years ago. The reasons for the lack of solidarity seem to be the lack of acceptance of sexual assault as an issue when these womyn were younger and the lack of adequate resources for survivors (not that we're passing this test with flying colors today).

I again came across this same general sense of disconnectedness while reading Julie Hirschfeld Davis' and Katie Rogers' At Trump Rallies, Women See a Hero Protecting a Way of Life. Some of the womyn who support 45 brush off his sexist remarks by saying they can take the heat, almost as if womyn who do not support him can't hang. Other womyn respond to his remarks by saying that they did not vote for hime because of his character or that voting for him doesn't mean they agree with everything he says.

Many of these womyn have decided that other issues, such as abortion and immigration or the power they gain from being married to powerful white men, are more important that 45's sexual assault rhetoric and actions. Again, we see the differences in our experiences taking priority over our role in the feminist movement.

What I understand even less is why some womyn have views that not only fail to promote equality, but actually hinder any growth. For instance, when I read of 45's pick for Kavanaugh's replacement on the D.C. Circuit, I was surprised he had chosen someone who I believed to be a womxn of color. After reading more about her, I realized how unsurprising this pick was. One of Neomi Rao's beliefs is that womyn can avoid potential date rape by staying "reasonably" sober. Rao definitely likes to victim blame. What is still astonishing to me is that she is not a man holding these views.

I think to myself, "How can someone who has likely fallen victim to one of the many systems of oppression the patriarchy has created have these views?"

I realize that many of us have internalized the patriarchy and cultural notions of machismo. But many of us have also been able to recognize the problems and inequalities that stem from living in a patriarchy. And I can't figure out where the disconnect lies between those individuals who promote sexist views, those who ignore them, and those who are actively fighting against them.

In all of this I have yet to figure out why our differences seem to be hindering our growth as feminists or why these "feminist" issues are placed on the backburner. Is this just another symptom of the patriarchy?