Posts tagged feminist

You know what I’m getting so sick of? People acting like at a certain age, feminist women join a covenant of raging harpies bent on destroying the male population. I’m over people treating feminism like it’s a space where arrogant, whiny, irrelevant, unintelligent women go to feel wanted by seeking to destroy others.

I didn’t need feminism to teach what the fuck was wrong with the world.

• When I would look in the mirror and scrutinize myself, feeling my skin up and down for hair, then look at myself in disgust if I found any of it as if it was the most unnatural thing that ever happened, I knew it was wrong. I knew it was awful that I was shut up in the bathroom near tears at 12 years old because boys said girls with hair were “nasty.” I knew feeling like I had “body hair issues” that far superseded other girls at my school was farfetched. Other girls clearly had to shave, too. But I felt like the only one. Or like I had “too much to take care of.” I didn’t need feminism to know I was driving myself fucking insane when I shouldn’t have been.
• When I hated my breasts because I didn’t think they were sexually pleasing to boys when I was 14, I didn’t know shit about feminism. When women would tell me that I would grow in to my body and not everyone was the same, I didn’t believe them. I couldn’t believe them because of the crap I heard people (even other girls) say about female bodies. I didn’t need feminism to know boys viewed girls’ bodies unrealistically and that it was unfair.
• When I tried to be friends with boys in high school and got smacked, made to feel uncomfortable and told to “suck it up,” I knew I was getting a crap deal. I knew it was wrong that the only way to be friends with boys was to be a boy. I knew boys didn’t want to associate with me as anything more than a bank of sexual questions and perhaps sexual encounters. I didn’t need feminism to know boys didn’t treat me fairly or care about my friendship.
• I didn’t know fuck all about feminism when I saw the only way boys were accepted in school was to behave violently—and often disrespectfully. Boys who were quieter, intellectual and gentle were bullied or took to hanging out alone or with a small, eclectic mix of people all unfit to be in the “boys club.” I didn’t need feminism to realize it was fucked up that “real masculinity” was defined on such crude, unacceptable behavior—and that any man who didn’t fit that was as unwelcome as I was.
• When I would help people with their homework, I was hailed as “the smart girl,” but no one ever credited their success to me. It wasn’t that I needed the recognition, but I knew there was something inherently fucked with boys asking me to tutor them, then turning around and pretending they didn’t know me. I didn’t need feminism to realize that it was awful that admitting a girl was smarter than you was shameful.
• I didn’t need feminism to realize when my friend and I were running away from older men chasing us in their car that, that sort of thing typically didn’t happen to men. It wasn’t a ground-breaking discovery that women didn’t wait outside of my high school waiting to follow young boys home, hooting at them for expressed sexual purposes.
• Being taught that crime was more likely to happen to me because I was a girl, whether that was true or not, wasn’t something I needed feminism to decode. I understood that this implied that women were weak—helpless victims in a man’s world. I didn’t need to know fuck about feminism to realize that the world around me wants me to be the victim—and actively tries to make me one.

In fact, I didn’t realize there was still an active, loud feminist movement in this country (and worldwide) until I was 17. Society does not fucking teach feminism. Society doesn’t try to steer women and girls off the path of righteousness by encouraging feminism. People become feminists because they saw the world for its shit a long time ago. Children are not stupid, you guys. If you perpetually put young girls in unsafe environments (or claim that any environment they find themselves in is inherently unsafe for them), they will find out about feminism. And they will mobilize. So if you make it your mission to throw dirt on feminists, you’re just fueling that inner 11-year-old who got her hair pulled by boys who thought she was ugly for having small breasts or not feminine enough or too ________ for a girl.

Feminism doesn’t teach us what’s wrong with the world, though sometimes it paints a better picture. Feminism teaches us how to act on the unfairness. The need for feminism starts young, m’dears. Feminism is not enlightenment. And when people realize it has been kept secret from them all those years in required schooling, they just get madder. Feminism is what people do when they realize our society’s conception of gender is fucked and that there is something they can do about it. I didn’t declare myself a feminist because I was bored or feeling particularly unattractive one day. I am a feminist because I realized all the shit that made me angry as a kid was an actual problem with the WORLD, not just “part of growing up.”

New idea.

FEMINISM: The Musical.

Featuring captivating numbers such as:

• “Your Views On Sex Are Valid (Just Don’t Tell Others What To Do)”
• “The Negative Effects Of Patriarchy On Men Are Not Misandry”
• “Intersectionality Or Nothing”
• “Most Suffragettes Were Racist (So Stop Referencing Them To Discredit Me)”
• “Street Harassment Is Not A Compliment”
• The Friendzone Is Bullshit/It’s OK To Be Just Friends”

I’m wearing my feminist hoodie today.

Seriously. That’s not an expression. I’m really wearing my feminist hoodie today:

And I’m not talking about the people who say “feminists can’t take a joke.” Those jerks are reserved for another post.

I’m talking about the people who go on feminism blogs to harass them and complain that they aren’t being entertaining. It’s usually when someone makes a post or starts a blog that tackles sexism by being sarcastic, using unconventional images (say, a 50s housewife or a Barbie doll making an angry comment about sexism) or by trying to make a joke about the offender’s stupidity that these troglodytes come out of the woodwork. This means the poster is now being harassed by people saying: “I wish you were funny” or “Try harder to make a joke next time” or, my favorite, “I WOULD like this blog if it were actually funny.”

Because that was our primary goal in our post that is calling out sexism—to be funny. To amuse you. It’s not like sexism is a serious issue, right? Discussion is worthless unless someone is laughing, isn’t it?

Get real, guys. Feminists aren’t here to amuse you. We’re not here to educate you. If we do decide to educate you, we’re not required to do it in a way that’s safe or fun for you. We are not here to make you comfortable.

Feminists, can I get a group facepalm going?

I’ll start:

I find it hilarious how most people who are pro-life on the basis that it’s “not the woman’s body anymore” or “what about the baby’s body and decisions!” are the same people who want to give parents the right to force their pregnant teens to carry pregnancies to term. These are also the types of people who think parents should be allowed to spank, circumcise, vaccinate/not vaccinate, have final say in all medical decisions for their child and even restrict that child’s access to sexual health information by refusing the sign the permission slip when that time of year comes to the schools. Why, you’d think these people think they know better. That their decisions are better than the child’s. That what they think is more important than what the child thinks. That they OWN these kids.

Huh. Real cute, guys. What’s worse is that these people want to control people who are actually born and would rather lose their minds because of clumps of cells that have no autonomy and are inherently less important than the person carrying them. Incredible.

I just had my wisdom teeth extracted yesterday, so I’m in no mood to be fucked with. One false move and I’m gonna cut you down. I’m having none of your misogyny today.

Added bonus: My wisdom teeth MAY have grown in just fine and been beautiful teeth. But I didn’t want them and since they were using MY body to develop, it was my choice to cut them off. Abortion is like that. Not like the holocaust. Not like slavery. Not like genocide. If you call a woman who seeks an abortion a murderer (you know, like people like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. Look them up) today, I just may have to educate you on what murder is.

I find it interesting how women can’t claim to be “friend zoned” lest they be dubbed desperate, clingy psychos UNLESS they do so by shaming the woman who was chosen instead of her by calling her a slut.