Men's understandings of women rambling
So, one of the blogs I follow is STFUConservatives. While I may not agree on every issue, I mostly follow for the take on women's issues and to get some form of news. On a side note, I seem to get 99% of my news from Tumblr. As someone who doesn't often have TV, I don't subscribe to news stories like I should. However, when I see something on Tumblr, I immediately Google it and learn. Cause knowledge is power!
But back to my main point. One of the latest posts made was in reference to this post. I literally read through all the reposts that had put commentary and have come to one conclusion: All of these feelings come from the inability to understand each other. Take my boyfriend. He is a bigger fella- Right around 6' and like 275 lbs, a lot of it muscular. When he had long hair that he wore in a pony tale, he could be kind of a scary sight, if you didn't know he's a big teddy bear. Now we'll look at me. 5'4 (not giving my weight :P) but also not a strong person in the least. My boyfriend might never understand why I might be frightened of walking alone at night. He might never understand why I prefer knowing ways of getting away from people if the need arose. Hell, I can already tell you that he doesn't. This is the boy who would take off on walks all by himself across campus our freshman year of college.
Men, in general, cannot understand what it means to feel threatened. They are, for the most part, larger and bulkier than most women. Not that they don't try. Kendall, bless his heart, can understand why I don't like walking alone at night, but he would probably never feel the same. He wouldn't get why a woman might be looking at him strangely or take a few steps away from him if she felt he was too close. He might not understand why a woman would not want to make small talk if he tried to talk to her. Like one of the reposts said, women eternally have to be wary of men around them. Because while what is said in the comic isn't the norm, women are constantly getting blamed for being raped or pregnant. "She was drunk." "Look what she was wearing!" "She said yes at first." Those are not reasons, those are excuses for you not to take responsibility for your actions. Not only that, but it's just difficult to know what is crossing a line. It's different to say "Have a nice day" rather than a wolf whistle and lewd comments. Some women can handle those and stand up for themselves- some women find them offensive, no matter what the intended meaning. I will say, though, that no woman lieks to be objectified. We don't like it when we constantly feel like something being owned. Think of Jasmine in Aladdin. WOMEN ARE PEOPLE TOO, M'KAY?? Haha, sorry. It's late and I'm kinda just going on now.
As I was saying, men cannot understand what it is to feel threatened in the way a woman on the street can. It's the same way that I, as a white person, cannot fully understand what racism is because I have never experienced it.
I realize anyone who is reading this can poke a bunch of holes in what I said and point out several places where I probably contradicted myself. However, I would like to end this by saying that I am indeed tired and that my thoughts and feelings on the subject matter are jumbled as well. There is no black-and-white when it comes to people understanding people and what we all believe. Who we are and what we think is scattered across the spectrum.
