I'm sorry if this offends you, but tough.
You know what annoys me?
I'm nineteen, single, probably bisexual. I'd like to have children someday. Raise them with a partner - male or female, or on my own if necessary. I'd like to do that. I feel I've a right to do that if I want to. I like to think I'd make a decent mother.
What annoys me is being made to feel judged because of this. Particularly by 'feminists' who tote liberalism at every other corner.
Apparently I should feel guilty for wanting this. Apparently this makes me a traitor to my sex who panders to a patriarchal society that thinks I'm incomplete without children. Apparently I can't possibly be a feminist or of equal worth to a man if I want children, and I can't possibly be part of the fight for gender equality. Apparently, being pregnant or having babies would make me disgusting, undesirable, less clever, less likely to succeed, less of a person in my own right. Heaven help me if I wanted to, oh, take a few years out of work to spend some fucking TIME with the children I spent nine months carrying.
Actually, no, 'annoyed' isn't the word. This makes me really, really angry.
Nobody has any fucking right to make me feel that way. No more right than I have to judge someone who *doesn't* want to have children, ever, for whatever reason. Or who would rather adopt. Or who'd go to the lengths of IVF to have them. Or who dyes their hair red. Or purple. Or who is black, or Asian, or white. Or who is gay. Or who likes to be tied up and spanked. Or who is turned right off by the very idea of kinkiness. Or who likes death metal, or Brit-pop, or classic rock, or techno music. Nobody has any right to make people feel dirty or stupid for wanting or being any of those things.
And no, being in the majority doesn't make it any more acceptable for people to make me feel bad about it. Live and let fucking live, people, and think before you make thoughtless comments about what people want in and out of life. Someone out there might just be being made to feel very awful about a perfectly innocent desire. If they care about your opinion, they might be completely crushed.
I don't say I manage this all the time. But I try. My preferences aren't inherently better than anyone else's preferences that don't involve hurting people without consent. Goes for lifestyle, children, clothes, music, food, fucking everything. I just wish the rest of the world would make an effort to stop leaping to judgements about people with quite such terrifying alacrity.
I'm nineteen, single, probably bisexual. I'd like to have children someday. Raise them with a partner - male or female, or on my own if necessary. I'd like to do that. I feel I've a right to do that if I want to. I like to think I'd make a decent mother.
What annoys me is being made to feel judged because of this. Particularly by 'feminists' who tote liberalism at every other corner.
Apparently I should feel guilty for wanting this. Apparently this makes me a traitor to my sex who panders to a patriarchal society that thinks I'm incomplete without children. Apparently I can't possibly be a feminist or of equal worth to a man if I want children, and I can't possibly be part of the fight for gender equality. Apparently, being pregnant or having babies would make me disgusting, undesirable, less clever, less likely to succeed, less of a person in my own right. Heaven help me if I wanted to, oh, take a few years out of work to spend some fucking TIME with the children I spent nine months carrying.
Actually, no, 'annoyed' isn't the word. This makes me really, really angry.
Nobody has any fucking right to make me feel that way. No more right than I have to judge someone who *doesn't* want to have children, ever, for whatever reason. Or who would rather adopt. Or who'd go to the lengths of IVF to have them. Or who dyes their hair red. Or purple. Or who is black, or Asian, or white. Or who is gay. Or who likes to be tied up and spanked. Or who is turned right off by the very idea of kinkiness. Or who likes death metal, or Brit-pop, or classic rock, or techno music. Nobody has any right to make people feel dirty or stupid for wanting or being any of those things.
And no, being in the majority doesn't make it any more acceptable for people to make me feel bad about it. Live and let fucking live, people, and think before you make thoughtless comments about what people want in and out of life. Someone out there might just be being made to feel very awful about a perfectly innocent desire. If they care about your opinion, they might be completely crushed.
I don't say I manage this all the time. But I try. My preferences aren't inherently better than anyone else's preferences that don't involve hurting people without consent. Goes for lifestyle, children, clothes, music, food, fucking everything. I just wish the rest of the world would make an effort to stop leaping to judgements about people with quite such terrifying alacrity.