Don't Tell Me to #bekind

Here we are again, deep in the season of Goodwill to All Men. Which surely begs the question: when are people not bending over backwards to be nice to men? Hashtag #bekind (or else). 

I think – or hope, rather – that we are beginning to see the end of all this #bekind malarky. It is the most inane, apolitical, patronising codswallop, and I say it’s time to let it sleep with the pretty fishies or push up some lovely ladylike daises.

I am not against kindness per se – even I am not that demented – I just hate the weaponisation of so-called “kindness” to shut down argument, and specifically to shut down women. 

In fact, the older I get, the more I appreciate real kindness. But, like spirituality, like charisma, kindness is a characteristic that we can really only recognise in and attribute to others, not a declarative boast we can make about ourselves. It is for others to decide if you are kind or not. I am always immensely moved when we learn, after someone’s death, about how quietly kind they were. It’s just happened with Benjamin Zephaniah, and it happened with George Michael, leaving a warm afterglow in the wake of sadness. 

Kindness is an action not an identity. It is not a T-shirt slogan or a Tweet, and it is certainly not a politics. If we really wanted more kindness in the world, this would at the very least require an end to men’s relentless violence against women. Yet what are the stats? One in three women will be subject to physical and sexual violence in their lifetime. (This, of course, does not include unreported harassment or violence.)

One of the reasons I am fascinated by the constant incantation to #bekind is because of the reaction I have observed when women are not kind. I am interested in female rage, and 10 years ago I wrote an essay about it that inadvertently began what I refer to as ‘the great unpleasantness’.

Back then I wrote: ‘These are the most conservative times for women I can remember. But why are we not saying, “Enough, already”? Why are we not telling our inbred overlords that we are not as nice as we look? Partly because we are afraid of our own anger. It’s not a pretty sight. Seeing red and letting go is, for many women, a dangerous activity. We are only ever a few HRT pills away from being a monstrous regiment. Women’s rage is also never seen as what we say it is actually about. It is inchoate, unreadable and uncontrollable. It is, of course, also totally thrilling.’