When it comes to anything on the internet related to feminism, the comments section often mirrors Onondaga Lake: dark, murky and probably not good for your health. The comments can range from insults of the actual article to threats on the author’s life. The problem is that these comments are not left by sexist men or internet trolls, they’re left by the very people women should be uniting with: feminists.

It is important for the feminist movement to have open discussions and for everyone’s voices to be heard. However, it seems that when you bring feminism to the internet, critiques are not constructive or conducive to our overall progression. Instead, we have people attacking each other about grammar mistakes, accusing each other of not being true feminists and creating an environment that discourages communication.

One could argue that this is a typical comments section for any website and normally I would agree, but the same people have started writing full-length articles instead of just comments. On Feb. 22, feminist writer Julie Burchill wrote an angry piece on intersectionality — the concept that women face different forms of oppression based on other minority groups they belong to — for Salon.com.

Burchill began by making a few good points about some feminist writers discouraging communication. Then she went on to berate transsexual women, referring to them as “gender-benders” and “dicks in chicks’ clothing.” She seems to think transsexual women aren’t real women and therefore don’t go through the same struggle.

Her article reinforces the notion that some have it worse than others. There seems to be a constant argument of who is more oppressed between minority groups among women. At the end of the day, oppression is oppression. It isn’t something that can be quantified or compared. No one wins the “who is more oppressed” game because they’re all still being oppressed.

Don’t get me wrong, intersectionality and other differences within the feminist community are important issues that need to be addressed. We all need to acknowledge and appreciate each other’s differences. We also need to acknowledge the fact that we are all being oppressed in different ways. But we still should remember that those ways are all connected by our gender.

Feminism is defined as the establishment of equal social, political and economic rights for all. Although all of these discussions are important aspects of feminism, it’s important that we don’t take our focus off of the main goal because we’re too busy fighting.

Of course, there are going to be disagreements, women are human beings too. We are dynamic and come to the table with different experiences and ideas for feminism. This is especially true because feminism and women’s rights are very sensitive topics. But, infighting doesn’t have to be a problem for the feminist movement. As long as we focus on our main goal and continue to uplift and support each other, a little disagreement is perfectly fine.

Mandisa Shields is a freshman newspaper and online journalism major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @mandisashields.

Published on March 3, 2014 at 1:00 am