Because that is the gender people generally tidy me into, not because it is one I feel comfortable in. If I could edit my physical self so that I could always feel comfortable I would, but I can’t.
I’m trapped and it sucks.
I pass through the world perceived as a woman, and so materially I am one, I guess. It sucks though, beyond just the suckiness of dealing with misogyny.
Is whether she’s been to college.
Maybe it’s not something most women identify as cause most women haven’t been to college.
Just sayin’
It’s a form of emotional labor I think a lot of men don’t understand, because it’s not a faked interest. It’s more that women are taught how to find things to be interested about in stuff people around us are interested in. Like how to see what they like about it, or find aspects of it that interest us, and do the emotional work of making it one of our interests and like it’s a genuine interest, not a fake one but it involves emotional labor.
And like I see a lot of dudes whose female partners and friends take an interest in their interests but they don’t return the favor and so all they talk about is the stuff that was initially the dude’s interest.
So like, dudes, take an interest in the interests of the women around you. Try to figure out what appeals to them about it. Try and see aspects of it that might interest you. Learn to take an interest in the interests of people you care about.
or it won’t actually do anything to further the cause of the liberation of women.
If you stopped telling them that everything they do is a flaw.
(also fuck people who want teenage girls to stop writing Mary Sues)
So women who aren’t cis, white, respectable bougie straight and so on, are ironically placed in the position of being oppressed by the patriarchal authority of women who are allowed the “true woman” label (also like each axis privilege allows you some patriarchal authority, like a white working class woman can use a measure of patriarchal force against a black working class woman cause yeah).
So like women who don’t have the benefit of “proper womanhood” are placed in the position of women under women who do, and so like bougie white cis abled straight “respectable” women enact a kind of double patriarchy on all other women I think.
Also I think oppression is exponential rather than simply additional (like being a disabled woman is more shitty than merely the sum of oppressed identities)
Like being kind and emotionally open with another man isn’t what I’d call a radical act but it is what I’d call a good start.
cause they don’t know how to be close with someone non-sexually, like their relationships with their dude friends are moderated through all these weird masculine codes where like touching and discussion of emotion are limited by this fear of effeminacy/homosexuality (and like it’s so deep they don’t even realize they’re doing it) and so like the only people they really talk about that shit with is their partners and so like they understand romance with emotional closeness.
Which like doesn’t excuse their behavior, just like reiterates how much of a problem toxic masculinity is and like if men want to do something feminist one of the best things they can do is emotionally connect with other men and like not be toxic towards other men.
and a woman is not believable as a heroic badass wearing the same tiny leather shorts (usually because she’s been written badly and has been cast/drawn/etc based on beauty standards that value feminine fragility) is as much a sign of patriarchy as the fact that they’re always putting women in tiny leather shorts.
Like Conan the Barbarian is wearing this
and no one questions his badassitude and it’s still a power fantasy, not him being sexually objectified. In fact it makes him look like MORE of a badass because he can wear tiny impractical leather shorts and he still ends up with nary a scratch.
I don’t want women to have to be wearing “OMGZ SUPER PRACTICAL” armor to be believable as heroes.
You see what I mean? I want to be able to remain a power fantasy and not a sex object even in tiny undies.
I want you to BELIEVE the heroine is tough enough that she doesn’t need full plate armor, because she’s been written as a badass and not a sex kitten… also I don’t want her in a chainmail bikini in a setting where the men get full plate.
This requires more of media creators because it requires them to write three dimensional female characters rather than just letting them raise a few necklines and call it a day.
Thoughts From The Peacock Angel 