it's always words that undress you @cherry-spit - Tumblr Blog

- Thor and his magic patu: notes on a very Māori Marvel movie

Thank you for this! I’m reminded of the old saying that satire is the weapon of the oppressed; when used by the people in power, it’s propaganda, and it’s cruel (I’m only paraphrasing). I consider it a very wise philosophy.

gallicinvasion

Despite the overwhelming amount of positivity on my take about why women are often unable to choose where to eat, many people have responded “OR she’s just not picky! OR she just wants to shoot down all my ideas! OR she’s just indecisive! It’s not that deep.”

Female socialization MAKES us more indecisive. We grow up being interrupted more. We grow up being discouraged from leading our peers for fear of being called stuck-up. We grow up with more restrictions on our movement and our activities. We grow up without the amount of attention and conversation that more disruptive boys often get from adults. We grow up with the knowledge that if we don’t defer to our friends’ preferences, we are dismissed as bossy and mean. Personally, I think that for many women, this means we have a hard time actually identifying if we have a preference at all (let alone what that preference actually is) because we are not in the habit of actually considering it. We’re so used to automatically deferring because we’ve done so all our lives, in fear of being inconsiderate or callous or bossy.

Often, when I’m asked about a preference of mine, my immediate thought is “I don’t feel like defending a choice, I just want to be agreeable and have a nice time, so whatever they want is okay. I don’t want to force the other person to have something they don’t want.” I have to literally force myself to take a second to actually think “Wait. If I could choose an option…what would I actually choose? What do I feel like right now?”

And sometimes I can’t even come up with one! And then I take another second and really consider each option. And I discover that I do in fact have a preference after all! If I had the choice all to myself, I know what I would pick. I’m not indecisive! I DO care!

We literally have to re-train ourselves to identify our preferences. And that’s fucked up.