Anne Frank’s Diary: A Feminist Perspective

There seems to be this visceral hate for the word FEMINISM and I would like to dissuade any notion that this is some “man-hating feminist blog”, or whatever such shit people come up with to denigrate any woman who dares to think or live outside the male gaze… but that’s a blog for another day. I want to discuss The Diary of Anne Frank, and what her story can teach us about conflict management, growing up with the expectation of others, and yes, feminism.

Unless this is your first search of Anne Frank, and let’s face it, if you’re here, you’re in the DEEP parts of the Internet, you most likely already know her story:  A young, German-born, Jewish girl who kept a diary while hiding from the Nazi occupation in Amsterdam.

Most children know about this book by the time they hit puberty, and it is hailed as one of the greatest pieces of literature in recent history. A harrowing story of everyday life, living through a hellish war, only to succumb to it with great tragedy.  

Because of recent events from certain oligarchs, I started thinking about the plight of the Jewish people, and how there are literally people in the world who deny the Holocaust even occurred… I can’t even with that shit. That led my thinking to Anne Frank, and how she’s literally proof of that occurrence by chronicling her everyday life and the terrible atrocities of the Jewish people during that time in history. Which then got me thinking, when was the last time I journaled myself? Because when you’re an adult, your diary is now your journal!

I remember getting one of my first diaries as a kid, and yet my brothers didn’t get one, in fact, I never met any boys who had diaries, but almost every other girl I knew kept one. It seemed to me, that writing in diaries was seen as a FEMININE thing, and not encouraged in little boys.  

Why did girls need diaries and boys didn’t? I have a theory.

When girls have strong feelings, we’re told to hold them inside and then get them down on paper so we can then let them go. We are taught good mental health behaviors at early ages. How to get along with others, be pleasant and minimize conflict. How else do you explain how we’ve collectively tolerated misogyny for the entirety of written history?

When boys have strong feelings, they’re told to confront and get those feelings out, and if necessary, get violent and fight out their problems. A scuffle here and there is good for a boy, right? It’s supposed to build character, then, win or lose you’ve shown you’re a man. How exactly is this good for their mental health?

What if boys don’t want to fight? Why is that desirable for little boys and not little girls? Why is that desirable at all? Don’t get me wrong, I understand how and why fights happen, sometimes, a human needs a good ass-whooping, but that’s not a masculine or feminine thing.

I distinctly remember my mom did the spankings growing up (that’s what we did back in the 80’s, shut up about it!), and I heard all about her rough and tumble upbringing as a Black woman in the 1960’s Deep South. She grew up knowing how to fight, that’s how she had to survive. She was also viewed as quite masculine, so when she joined the Marine Corps in the 70’s no one thought twice about it.

We are taught that physical fighting is distinctly a MASCULINE thing, that it’s normal for boys to fight. I disagree, it’s a survival thing. It’s what people must do because someone wants to take what they have. They want to protect what they have, or take something that they want. We assign it to gender because males are typically born bigger and stronger than females, and that can be an asset in a physical fight. I have known plenty of women who would take most of their peers in a physical fight.

We are also taught that verbal fighting is a distinctly FEMININE thing, and we are the ones who use our words as weapons, especially to other women to get what we want. I disagree, as I’ve known plenty of men who can cut a person down to stumps with their biting words, sharp tongues, and quick wits, which we typically assign as female traits. We assign it as female because our brains typically develop earlier than males, which is an asset in a battle of the wits. When we fight with our words, it’s usually to protect something that we have or to get something that we want… same as a physical fight, right?  

We fight as humans every day. With ourselves, others, pets, clothing, etc. For example: I fight my hair on a daily basis so I don’t frighten small children when I leave my home, but I digress.

Fast forward to “Adulthood” now, and it’s common for women AND men to keep journals, and to write out their feelings because it’s been proven that it’s good for our mental health, and trust, we ALL have strong feelings, should journal, and probably be in therapy. It lets us go back and see what we are really fighting for, and if or when that fight is worth it. All of the junk that’s swirling around in our heads has a place to call home in those lovely little journals. It provides clarity to some of our most fundamental questions:

What am I fighting for?

Survival?

Morals?

Something else? 

Anne Frank is an example of doing the best you can with the tools given. She had very strong feelings (who wouldn’t?!) and she wrote them down, but she also did what she had to do to survive for as long as she could. She not only fought verbally, with her words in her diary, but also physically, both before and after she was captured and endured months of hell until eventually succumbing to death by concentration camp. Her story showcases emotional and physical conflict on unimaginable scales, and how to fight back, even when you don’t really know how. Words have power too, not just punches.

My point is, conflict, and how we deal with that conflict, are everyday parts of life, and should not be assigned gender. True feminism is treating people as equals, who deserve to make their own decisions about who they are, and fight with the tools available to them.

Why would we teach one tool and not the other based on gender? Oh wait, that’s right, say it with me now… PATRIARCHY!

We can do better!

I want to encourage everyone, no matter how they identify, to keep a journal, diary, log; whatever you want to call it. Especially now, during a time of such conflict and political strife. We should all be able to look back on these days with hindsight and see where were, for how can we know where we are going if we know not where we have been?

I think we should encourage more little boys to write in diaries.

I think we should encourage more little girls to learn self-defense and fighting skills.

I think we should encourage all children to do both!

That is true feminism.