feminism didn’t teach me that men are out to get me. it didn’t persuade me mansplaining existed a là wormtongue or tell me to set fire to my bra. it said ‘hey, has this ever happened to you?’, and it had.
it said ‘this happens to most women, and it kind of sucks, right?’, and i agreed that it did
and it encouraged me to question and to think: to not assume i had to be quiet and subsurvient, to question why i had to shave and my male friends did not, to use my voice when i was uncomfortable or unhappy
and i was shocked to realise all the garbage around me, but excited to do what i could to change it
and then i started to talk to men about it
and i was told women are sluts and bitches, and that we have it better than men, and that fat women are always unloveable, and that feminism is a hate group, that because the 77 cents figure was disproved no wage gap could possibly exist, that affirmative action is unfair, that women are just not as smart or capable as men, that i should get back in the kitchen, that i was too sensitive, that hot women will always be reduced to their bodies and ugly women will always be mocked for theirs, that mansplaining didn’t exist (this was, of course, mansplained to me), that women just aren’t cut out for STEM, that women these days are uppity, that i was a whore if i had sex and a prude if i didn’t, that i deserved what was coming to me if i took nudes but could i send them some anyway?
i will always fight to protect and support men and their rights. i care deeply about male suicide rates, male addiction rates and the attitude that prevents men from getting help, paternity leave, racial discrimination against black men, toxic masculinity, domestic abuse against men not being taken seriously…
but goddamn, when i talk to men and have them consistently refuse to acknowledge my experiences are valid, when they laugh and ask if i’m on my period or tell me to ‘smile!’, when they brush me off as a SJW or get angry at me for being a ‘bitch’, it makes me want to say ‘you know what? fuck men. i give up.’
feminism taught me to value myself. nothing more, and nothing less. that’s not what’s making me bitter here.
stormborns
areudirty
theartofmadeline
blakekathryn
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