Saving ourselves.
Mur Lafferty: "Dear daughter..."
Worth reading in its entirety.
Dear daughter -
You should know that you are hated.
I’m not sure why they hate you. You didn’t do anything to them. You don your princess crown, take up your sword, and pretend at Pokemon. You read your books and you learn how to draw comics and dragons and you play piano and practice kung fu. You delight in pretty dresses and weaponry. You love me when I nurture you as a mom, train with you as a warrior, and play video games and card games with you.
There is nothing worse than being a girl. I’m not saying this as a former girl - I quite liked being a girl. I’m saying this from the POV of the entire rest of the world. There was a lovely feminist TED talk - A Call To Men - where a man discussed his conversation with a twelve year old boy, and the boy said he would rather die than be called a girl. And the man thought, Good Lord, how do these boys view girls, if being compared to them is the worst thing in the world?
I’ve seen boys cry when injured. Frustrated. Feelings hurt. Blocked out of play. Denied something. It’s what kids do as they learn the world around them. The world is tough; before you learn to cope, you cry, whether you sport the penis or the fallopian tubes. It’s fucking lesson #1 after you take your first breath. I cried. You did too.
So. The world hates you. You are considered the worst thing to be compared to.
It's actually uplifting, at the end, and beautiful. And encouraging, that there are mothers out there who know the deal and are preparing their daughters for what they will face lovingly, without being like my mother and telling them that they don't have a chance and will never make it.
Her daughter's tee shirt at the end is the perfect punctuation, pale blue on black, under a cartoon crown:
Self-Rescuing Princess
X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:
Worth reading in its entirety.
Dear daughter -
You should know that you are hated.
I’m not sure why they hate you. You didn’t do anything to them. You don your princess crown, take up your sword, and pretend at Pokemon. You read your books and you learn how to draw comics and dragons and you play piano and practice kung fu. You delight in pretty dresses and weaponry. You love me when I nurture you as a mom, train with you as a warrior, and play video games and card games with you.
There is nothing worse than being a girl. I’m not saying this as a former girl - I quite liked being a girl. I’m saying this from the POV of the entire rest of the world. There was a lovely feminist TED talk - A Call To Men - where a man discussed his conversation with a twelve year old boy, and the boy said he would rather die than be called a girl. And the man thought, Good Lord, how do these boys view girls, if being compared to them is the worst thing in the world?
I’ve seen boys cry when injured. Frustrated. Feelings hurt. Blocked out of play. Denied something. It’s what kids do as they learn the world around them. The world is tough; before you learn to cope, you cry, whether you sport the penis or the fallopian tubes. It’s fucking lesson #1 after you take your first breath. I cried. You did too.
So. The world hates you. You are considered the worst thing to be compared to.
It's actually uplifting, at the end, and beautiful. And encouraging, that there are mothers out there who know the deal and are preparing their daughters for what they will face lovingly, without being like my mother and telling them that they don't have a chance and will never make it.
Her daughter's tee shirt at the end is the perfect punctuation, pale blue on black, under a cartoon crown:
Self-Rescuing Princess
X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count: