I sometimes glance over my shoulder and look at the feminist I was more than fifteen years ago. Emancipation is a long path where we sometimes change our minds many times. At each turn, I believed I was right. But I’ve always been deeply sincere. Perhaps that’s why I trust my feminist ethics: I take a long time to accept new ideas, and I’m wary of “converts” (myself included). When I change, it’s because the thought process has truly matured; and then my change is real.

This demand for sincerity with myself gives me, I believe, a sense of power. It’s what always brings me back to feminism — stronger and better. In this article, which follows on from the previous one, I want to discuss sincerity and its role in feminist struggle. I’ve chosen three main threads: sincerity in the face of dominant ideologies and belief systems (the point of view of someone who is dominated), sincerity within the intimacy of a woman’s life, and finally, sincerity as a tool for concrete feminist action.

We live in a world where women are considered inferior. The information they possess about themselves, about their own condition, is often partial, biased, or outright denied. When I say that, I think of the medical neglect that so many women suffer: Spasfon, supposedly relieving menstrual pain, is nothing but a placebo; endometriosis is almost never diagnosed; or pregnancy nausea, whose cause remains unknown. I also think about how our pain is often labeled “psychological” or “hormonal,” when the reality is that no one even bothers to study it.

Sometimes, we end up believing in our own inferiority. This belief is nurtured by a system of thought that is ancient, collective, and deeply rooted: religious, patriarchal, economic, and identity-based beliefs — all capable of disqualifying women’s voices. People invoke the “biblical truth,” hide behind fixed certainties, call “natural” what is in fact cultural. And as soon as a woman challenges these discourses, she’s dismissed as irrational, mythomaniac, or hysterical.

Yet sincerity is a powerful resource to confront these dominant systems of thought. Saying things as they are, telling concrete stories, means directly opposing the doxa that claims “women exaggerate” or “make things up.” That’s precisely what researcher Nepthys Zwer refers to in critical geography as counter-mapping: making visible everything the dominant mapping (or, in our case, the dominant discourse) erases. It means embracing our situated points of view and asserting them.

In cyberspace too, one could imagine a form of counter-mapping: charting the digital journeys of women, their way of occupying and navigating the web, to reveal what remains invisible in “big numbers.” This feminist approach would introduce a kind of sincerity into research: owning subjective angles, abandoning the “coldness” of statistical neutrality, and shedding light on lived experiences that are usually silenced.

In short, being sincere in a world ruled by heavy and established beliefs is hard — but it’s a way out of the matrix. For that, I believe we need curiosity, doubt, and the ability to listen to our own limits. Sometimes, we test a belief, observe its concrete impact, and then ask: does it really hold up? Or is it just a lie meant to maintain the existing order?

Romantic and emotional relationships are saturated with patriarchy, that dominant ideology which makes us believe it’s all inevitable. We’re taught to suppress our needs, to play along with the “romantic mystery,” to avoid communicating too much so we don’t scare off our partner. But as Coral Herrera Gómez says, we need to “de-patriarchalize our emotions, our discourses, our behaviors”:

“Romance is political: if we want to transform, improve or revolutionize the world we live in, we must change how we live our sexual, emotional, and romantic relationships...
We, women, are currently making giant strides in de-patriarchalizing our emotions, our discourses, our behaviors, our way of building relationships.
Through feminism, we seek to eliminate contradictions and connect what we think, feel, say, and do. Honesty and coherence are the keys to moving from theory to practice: we want a better world, we want healthier, more enjoyable and more satisfying relationships.”

Being honest with oneself and with one’s partners means aligning what we think, say, and do. That doesn’t mean those who don’t already apply all of this aren’t feminists — sometimes we don’t have the choice (for economic, safety, or other reasons). But when we’re able to look our contradictions in the face, we open the possibility of gradually changing our practices. We consciously claim feminism.

For men, sincerity is also a crucial issue: not calling oneself feminist out of convenience, but because it’s the only honest way to live with oneself. Only then can we build relationships — couples or otherwise — on real foundations, break down preconceived ideas, and live truly feminist relationships.

“The hardest battle I ever fought against my soul was when I tried to force it to be sincere.”
— Majmû’ Fatâwâ wa Rasâ’il Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymîn, (1/98–100)

One might think that for a man steeped in misogynistic ideas, understanding women’s pain would be enough to change his mind. But in reality, men who fall into the manosphere say they had their wake-up call when the sexist discourse turned into racism or antisemitism — not necessarily when seeing the suffering of their sisters or friends. It’s often an older brother, a buddy, or confrontation with openly extremist rhetoric that triggers awareness.

And yet, the intimate sincerity of women — the stories shared with a man just as he begins to doubt — can have a decisive role. When someone realizes he “doesn’t even know” what the women in his life have experienced (harassment, assault, etc.), and finally asks for real — that’s when women’s long-silenced words might finally be heard. Perhaps this kind of listening, marked by shared sincerity, is the only durable way to break cynicism or indifference.

In truth, everything pushes men to not believe women. I recently saw a Reel on Instagram where a woman claimed that women have always spoken — far more than we think when we say “they're breaking their silence today.” They’re just more visible now. That was a revelation to me. Maybe we’re also being made to carry the weight of our own silencing? “They’re breaking the silence” — as if we chose to stay quiet until now. In reality, women have always spoken: among themselves, to their husbands, to anyone they could. But they were silenced. And still today, women are threatened to keep them from speaking. Women are killed to keep them silent.

Women have long been accused of lying. The Malleus Maleficarum of the 15th century saw in women’s “weakness” the root of all diabolical trickery. In the 19th and 20th centuries, psychiatry pathologized “hysteria,” reinforcing the myth of female deceit. And for centuries, in many cultures, women’s testimonies held less legal value. In the 21st century, in the West, we still see the trope of the “manipulative” or “deceitful” woman. Everything is designed to cast doubt on women’s words.

And yet it’s by speaking that we break the cycle. Sincerity has a price — higher or lower depending on whether you live in Morocco, France, or elsewhere. I’ve met women who, out of fear of reprisals, developed great skill in lying. A duplicity formed to survive under domination. We don’t really know what women think — and often, it’s a necessary mode of protection.

Women, who are oppressed, asked to lie to fulfill their social role, to remain silent, to show nothing, to stay hidden, whose voices don’t count — are then accused of being liars? We are pushed to duplicity and then blamed for being duplicitous.

And yet the cliché of the woman who opens up, who communicates, who tries to bring sincerity into the couple, had its heyday during the heteronormative era of the 1990s–2010s, when I was growing up. Back then, I thought I was on the “right side” — the side that didn’t show its cards, like men who play poker — because I wasn’t “a woman like the others.” I was feminist, I could be as strong as a man... And maybe that’s how, in our ultra-capitalist world, in so-called “feminist” heterosexual relationships, a toxic competition is created between the independent, feminist woman and the conventionally pro-feminist man. For several years now, I’ve been trying to unlearn this reflex and to be sincere — with myself and in my relationships with men.

To show you — and to be able to discuss with you — this sincerity in action, here are a few paths I try to follow:

/Raw, unfiltered testimonies (#MeToo, gynecological violence…)
We need both public and private spaces. In the media space, we raise broad awareness; in the personal circle, we create a deeper, more qualitative impact.

Stop lying to men to spare them or protect ourselves
"Never fake an orgasm, let them know they failed."
I know it’s not easy: a man with a bruised ego can become violent, and it’s sometimes a survival reflex. But I believe we can no longer afford this way of functioning, because it keeps us stuck in lies. And this kind of lie, specifically, is an obstacle to feminist progress — and there are many others like it.

Public and assumed self-critique of feminism
Feminism must be sincere with itself. Progressivism can sometimes become “a resource in the competition between men,” and claiming to be feminist doesn’t prevent some from interrupting women or even making misogynistic jokes. That’s why it’s essential to criticize the co-opting of feminist values for marketing or power purposes (pinkwashing).

We must also keep an eye on our contradictions: for example, “girl boss” feminism is just neoliberal camouflage. Furthermore, it’s necessary to exclude from our struggle those so-called feminisms that promote values incompatible with feminism. Of course, there are disagreements between feminists — for instance between abolitionists and non-abolitionists — but a feminism that judges sex workers is not feminist. Whether we support the legalization of prostitution or its abolition, if we are feminists, we aim for the well-being and liberation of sex workers.

Far-right feminist groups, for their part, cannot be accepted within feminism. A woman is a woman, and we cannot choose to save some and not others. Within leftist feminism in France, there’s a strong focus on Palestinian women, which is justified by the dramatic situation they face. But Jewish women in Israel also deserve our attention: they too are victims of Netanyahu’s government and of patriarchy in Israel and within the practicing Jewish diaspora. As a reminder, in Israel, a woman cannot divorce without her husband’s consent (in 2025).

So, for me, there’s no question of defending only Muslim women and not Jewish women because of the political context. Their voices are also silenced. I’m not referring here to the few lawyers or activists who appear on TV defending Zionism; they seem to me to be a specific case, a bit like the tradwives, which we can explore later.

Right to be wrong
In this approach, the right to make mistakes and to change one’s mind sincerely is essential. Many of us have re-evaluated our positions, realizing that some ideas or approaches no longer aligned with our ethics or the realities we were discovering. Being able to admit that we were wrong and to revise our point of view is not only a sign of coherence, but also a tremendous engine for learning.

Setting Up and Highlighting Online Feminist Support Groups
To be effective, online feminist groups must offer real protection and support, especially in cases of harassment. Even if such spaces surely exist somewhere, I’ve never personally witnessed them. I believe we are still missing a vivid narrative of what this support between women looks like in these situations.

Highlighting Positive Stories and Feminine Solidarity
Fighting together isn’t just about sharing our pain — it’s also about nourishing ourselves with joy, with our small successes.

Valuing Quiet and Non-Spectacular Victories
Not everything is won through big Twitter clashes. Sometimes, a simple and calmly stated “No” changes everything. We must encourage every form of feminist struggle — especially when it comes from women — because we still tend to applaud a man doing something feminist more quickly, even though it’s often far easier for him to “get away with it” than it is for a woman.

Claiming the Right to Boredom and Intimacy
We should not feel obligated to perform, to share everything, to justify everything, or to constantly “prove” our feminism. The refusal to overperform, the desire to take time to grow — all of that stands in opposition to neoliberal injunctions of productivity. Feminism is not a marketing plan; it is a struggle for our collective emancipation.

Everyday Feminism and Human Connection
Some people speak of “sisterhood”. I find the concept interesting, as long as it’s understood as a feminized version of “Fraternity”, in the broader sense — one that of course includes men of goodwill, sincere and willing to listen.

Ultimately, sincerity is not just a moral ideal: it is also a political lever. It helps us confront beliefs that keep us in a dominated position, reconnect with who we truly are in our relationships, and make our struggles more authentic and powerful. Could sincerity ultimately be the only way to build struggles, connections, and victories that genuinely ring true?

A Preview of What Will Likely Be the Next Article: feminine sincerity can be exploited without reciprocity or respect — especially in the digital world and in cryptocurrencies (where men are also often victims).
This is a topic I would like to address later: how can we preserve our autonomy and our integrity in this uncertain digital environment, without giving up sincerity or sacrificing our safety?

It will be an article that refocuses on cyberfeminism, with the goal of thinking about the notion of trust and finding tools to advance the feminist struggle in cyberspace.

To be continued…
@agathedavray.eth
Translated thanks to ChatGPT 4o - Original version, in French, Mar 23, 2025: https://medium.com/@agathe.laurent.richard/la-sincérité-comme-exigence-et-ressource-féministe-éloge-dun-levier-d-action-intime-et-politique-11af4419f97d

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