Girls are also taught that girls = bad. My eight year old niece is constantly sneering about dresses and girls who wear them, and it’s more than just she herself doesn’t like dresses, it’s that she has been taught that femininity is degrading, that dolls are for idiots, that dresses are stupid and so on.
People believe they are rallying against the patriarchy when they scoff at women who enjoy make up and beautiful clothes, that these women have been brainwashed by the patriarchy into enjoying putting time and effort into their appearance, which is a patronising and dismissive attitude that is ingrained in children from a young age. Like a woman couldn’t possible know what is best for herself or what sparks the most joy in her. Nope. She’s brainwashed.
People force dolls and dresses and traditionally feminine pastimes and hobbies onto little girls while also telling little girls that dolls and dresses and traditionally feminine pastimes are degrading and ridiculous. There is still a prevalent attitude that femininity = bad, brainwashed, stupid while masculinity = good, smart, not a waste of time.
We are all conditioned from an early age that femininity is a trap, a trick pulled over on us by the patriarchy, or that femininity is something not to aspire too, like in the case of young boys liking girl characters. We’ve been tricked into thinking that feminism is to deny our femininity, and that’s not feminism. Feminism is not about shaming women into not being feminine because apparently if they engage in traditionally feminine practices it’s the patriarchy brainwashing them; it’s about letting women and all people explore with their femininity and their masculinity and come to decisions about which one or what mixture of the two brings them the most joy.
prguitarman
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