Back in September, I made some short Youtube videos about different kinds of social privileges people benefit from. One of the videos was on male privilege, and somebody who labels himself as an “anti-feminist” ripped the video off Youtube, broke it down into small segments, and responded to each of the points I made. The video got over 17,000 views, and almost 500 comments, most of which were something like:

"I wonder why fatty fell into feminism."

"Holy fuck that fat c**t is hideous.”

"Is that a woman or a cheeseburger? I guess you are what you eat…”

“She's a feminazi because she's fat and no one likes her. Must be men's fault that she's lazy and worthless.”

"Next time please cover a video with a feminist c**t that is at the very least worthy of sexual objectification.”

While I am an adamant feminist, I understand that not every person will hold the same beliefs as me, and I can’t change that. I vehemently disagreed with the response video he made to my original video, and I wanted to argue with the video he made; but since the man who made the video and most of the people commenting on the video were commenting on my appearance, I felt scared and bullied. I decided responding wasn’t worth my time because they clearly had no concept of what feminism was if all they could do was talk about how ugly they thought I was.

This type of incident has been reappearing in my life a lot lately with the 2016 presidential election becoming more active. Several times a week, I see Facebook threads with my friends getting into heated debates about why Hillary is better than Bernie, or why Obama sucks and Ted Cruz will turn the country around. Between my 1,356 Facebook friends, just about every presidential candidate is represented and fought for. The ideal when it comes to friends and family with different beliefs is that everybody respects everybody’s beliefs, and discusses why they agree or disagree. This standard typically works in that it won’t make anybody stop loving their friend or family member, but it won’t stop things from getting tense outside of social media. Debating presidential candidates can be a sticky situation, because the reason you support any given candidate is because they most closely stand for what you believe in. If you’re supporting Bernie Sanders and your godmother is supporting Donald Trump, you might bash heads because they stand on totally separate issues. So how do you maintain loving, non-awkward relationships with friends and family members when we find you find out that you completely disagree on some huge issues?

It’s a matter of separating the beliefs from the person, which is definitely a tough thing to do, as beliefs are such a fundamental part of a person. You probably have to weigh what that person means to you. If the boy from freshman year Algebra who you Facebook messaged one night at midnight when you couldn’t figure out the last homework problem is a Trump supporter, you probably aren’t losing much by de-friending him and moving on with your life. Whereas if it’s your best friend from high school who is one of the only people in the world who knows how to make you laugh when you’re crying, you may not want to cut her out just because you don’t have the same political views. It is in this case that you remind yourself why she is important to you… You love her because she knows how to make you feel better when you're sad, if that means enough to you, then you can overlook who she supports politically, even if it disagrees with you. If you can overlook these things in people you love, then hopefully you can keep quiet when they make assertions about why politicians they support are great, and why politicians you support suck.

However, if you’re like me, that doesn’t always work. If I see someone talking about something that I truly think is fundamentally wrong, I feel compelled to share my opinion in a respectful, non-forceful way. This is where it gets complicated because you really have to remember to separate the politics from the person. When you share why you disagree, it’s important not to make accusations. Not all republicans are homophobic, and not all democrats think paying taxes is patriotic.

When people share something on social media that directly criticizes or goes against what you believe in, remember that they aren’t trying to tear you down. It’s really easy to think that by supporting a presidential candidate, someone believes everything that candidate believes… That’s not true. There is no such thing as a perfect presidential candidate, most people have to support the person who most closely matches their beliefs, so don’t assume that your old lab partner is a socialist or your uncle is misogynistic… Because chances are, they’re not, they’re just settling or the candidate that most closely shares their beliefs.

The people who commented all those awful things about me physically were infuriated by my beliefs and chose to attack my physical appearance because that was one of the only ways they could focus their anger. It may sound silly, but it is very easy to go from criticizing a person’s beliefs to criticizing a person themselves if you’re upset enough. Don’t let conflicting viewpoints make a strain on a relationship you have with a loved one.