scariest thing is when you're a kid in a huge family run by women and then you go over to a house that's deeply patriarchal & misogynistic. i remember when i was 8 years old and i got invited over to my friend's house for a big birthday party with her entire extended family. after the enormous lunch that served over 30 people, i got called into the kitchen to do literally hundreds of dishes, alongside all the other little girls and women. not only were the boys our age all excused from the meal to go play, but all the grown men went to the living room to watch sports together and drink. i couldn't believe it. i asked why some of the grownups were watching TV but the girls had to clean up and all the women just laughed and laughed at me.
as a teenager when i learned the word "sexist" and used it the older women balked at it and tried to convince me this arrangement was a good thing actually because women need space from men, and cleaning in the kitchen after parties is a sacred domain of safety. and i was like actually i think needing private safety from your own husbands, sons, and brothers sounds even worse. like do you understand you somehow made this even more troubling than it already was
like i think it's fine if a bunch of sister-in-laws/wives want time together without their husbands & brothers to talk together in camaraderie. i'm not judging that. obviously. but dare i ask why the women's meetup could only take place while doing manual labor for a nearby room full of men
it's also interesting how this ingrained rigid social structures in children bc i was mostly friends with boys at that age and in fact was at the birthday party of a friend who was a boy so i remember complaining to him at school that it was weird all the girls had to help clean up because i didn't know any of the other little girls so i felt really left out that i didn't get to hang out with my own friends for a chunk of the party and he and the other little boys were like "that's just the rules."
