I'm just tired in general.
You ever feel like the things you've believed in all your life have just become too tiring to speak about? I feel that way a LOT lately about feminism. It's not that I don't believe in it, it's that it shapes and bleeds into a lot of what I think about, and yet I have to edit and censor it so heavily when talking to other people it actually feels like it takes a physical toll.
It's tiring when there are so many inter-feminist arguments about how feminism should be handled, down to nitpicking details, that it feels like nothing can get done and all that we can universally agree on is that problems exist.
It's tiring when you have family members casually criticising women's bodies in a broad and uncomfortable way, but if you say anything about it they accuse you of just trying to start a fight.
It's tiring when you have friends who don't seem to realize how critical they are of women and how forgiving they are of men, and you don't know how to point it out without alienating them. Or when your friends make blanket statements about gender that have value implications and you realize they don't even recognize that they're putting YOU with the "bad" group.
It's tiring when issues about gender cross into other issues and it STILL feels like women are being pushed to the bottom rung. It's tiring when you realize that this doesn't seem to happen when discussing issues that don't cross with feminism. Everyone else gets to be the loudest in their own space, but women take a back seat in feminism if they don't have something to add besides their womanhood. It's tiring because you realize that it's important to be inclusive, but it so often comes around to feeling not so much different from misogyny.
[And now I'm going to get specific.]So there's this discussion on FFA that's about how it's exclusive and alienating for any woman to talk about vaginas in terms of their womanhood or femininity. How it's so much more inclusive to say "woman" (or apparently make direct reference to femininity or I guess call yourself a babe or something). People are quibbling about it being off topic and calling it ignorant to imply that there's any connection at all between biological sex and gender.
It's not even a phrase I would ever think to use myself ("hand in my vagina card"). People are saying it makes them feel dysphoric, and I believe them. But it makes a lot of women who, for better or worse, have had their gender identity societally shaped by their body once again feel like it's not their own to discuss. And the best some can offer is "I'm sorry it makes you feel like your identity and body are being policed, but you're a cis woman and there are plenty of places you can go to talk about tour vagina".
Except there aren't? No, really. Because the conversation as a whole condemned that in any context if you connect it to womanhood. And even in practice, I don't exactly have a lot of places at my disposal where I can casually refer to my vagina without people being grossed out, even if the conversation has allowed for discussion of penises. Hell, even if breasts come up! And being allowed to talk about it doesn't mean we're implying that it's universal, any more than talking about any other experience many women face. When women talk periods*, they aren't excluding trans women any more than they're excluding pre- or post-menopausal women or any other women who don't have periods. It's actually truly important, and not on a Tumblr-esque "THIS IS SO IMPORTANT" kind of way, for women to be allowed to talk about these things without getting shut down constantly for not being totally, completely, one hundred percent explicitly inclusive of every type of woman to exist.
Talking about women driving in countries where it's illegal doesn't imply that the existence of women, in those countries or elsewhere, who have disabilities that prevent them from driving are lesser. Talking about experiences in the film industry that effect women doesn't invalidate the experiences of working class women. Talking about a woman's choice to have children doesn't make that woman more important than women who are childfree, and vice versa. Referring to your breasts as a part of your body, your femininty, your female experience, your womanhood, and how you are perceived as female does NOT imply that women without breasts are nkt female.
I feel like this comes from the same attitude that causes many women to wholeheartedly reject feminism: the attitude that because they live a socially acceptable feminine lifestyle and are not bothered personally by whatever misogyny may be in their lives, no one should be, because everyone should think of THEIR experience first and feel the same way they do.
I don't feel that way. Even about this issue. I want trans women, black women, disabled women, religious women, and all kinds of women to be able to think of and discuss their own experiences, gender, and bodies without constantly being reminded of how they have to filter it for all other women first.
It's especially frustrating because this particular discussion ALWAYS falls on women. I guess it doesn't have as much opportunity to fall on men, but it stands out a lot as a result because no one even seems to bring it up. No one says men have to stop talking about their dicks because they might alienate transmen if they define their manhood that way. Fuck, no one is even openly critical of the fact that "manhood" is common and accepted slang for dicks. No one expects men to accommodate. And women have to pick up the slack on both sides, protecting men with vaginas and women without them.
It is so, so tiring. And it's not like I don't think there are more ways female-oriented spaces can be inclusive, but I hate this word policing and how misogyny gets put on the backburner over and over again.
But it's almost not worth arguing about. It's just so fucking exhausting. I am literally physically tired from this. It makes me feel like this shit isn't worth it. Sure, let's let other people determine how I talk about my gender, my body, my experiences. Let's stop caring, self. Let's give up and give in.
In a lot of ways I have. I let other people do the talking. Outside of this mostly dead blog I talk more about racism and LGBT rights, even though neither affect me directly. I don't even feel like it's worth examining my own position with my gender and sexuality sometimes. I get too much anxiety about how other people would judge me or find me unworthy.
*which, yes, is a wholly separate discussion from vaginas. Truthfully, vaginas in the specific almost never come up in period talks.
...my next post is going to be a more positive discussion of feminism in media, to make up for this feelingspew.
It's tiring when there are so many inter-feminist arguments about how feminism should be handled, down to nitpicking details, that it feels like nothing can get done and all that we can universally agree on is that problems exist.
It's tiring when you have family members casually criticising women's bodies in a broad and uncomfortable way, but if you say anything about it they accuse you of just trying to start a fight.
It's tiring when you have friends who don't seem to realize how critical they are of women and how forgiving they are of men, and you don't know how to point it out without alienating them. Or when your friends make blanket statements about gender that have value implications and you realize they don't even recognize that they're putting YOU with the "bad" group.
It's tiring when issues about gender cross into other issues and it STILL feels like women are being pushed to the bottom rung. It's tiring when you realize that this doesn't seem to happen when discussing issues that don't cross with feminism. Everyone else gets to be the loudest in their own space, but women take a back seat in feminism if they don't have something to add besides their womanhood. It's tiring because you realize that it's important to be inclusive, but it so often comes around to feeling not so much different from misogyny.
[And now I'm going to get specific.]So there's this discussion on FFA that's about how it's exclusive and alienating for any woman to talk about vaginas in terms of their womanhood or femininity. How it's so much more inclusive to say "woman" (or apparently make direct reference to femininity or I guess call yourself a babe or something). People are quibbling about it being off topic and calling it ignorant to imply that there's any connection at all between biological sex and gender.
It's not even a phrase I would ever think to use myself ("hand in my vagina card"). People are saying it makes them feel dysphoric, and I believe them. But it makes a lot of women who, for better or worse, have had their gender identity societally shaped by their body once again feel like it's not their own to discuss. And the best some can offer is "I'm sorry it makes you feel like your identity and body are being policed, but you're a cis woman and there are plenty of places you can go to talk about tour vagina".
Except there aren't? No, really. Because the conversation as a whole condemned that in any context if you connect it to womanhood. And even in practice, I don't exactly have a lot of places at my disposal where I can casually refer to my vagina without people being grossed out, even if the conversation has allowed for discussion of penises. Hell, even if breasts come up! And being allowed to talk about it doesn't mean we're implying that it's universal, any more than talking about any other experience many women face. When women talk periods*, they aren't excluding trans women any more than they're excluding pre- or post-menopausal women or any other women who don't have periods. It's actually truly important, and not on a Tumblr-esque "THIS IS SO IMPORTANT" kind of way, for women to be allowed to talk about these things without getting shut down constantly for not being totally, completely, one hundred percent explicitly inclusive of every type of woman to exist.
Talking about women driving in countries where it's illegal doesn't imply that the existence of women, in those countries or elsewhere, who have disabilities that prevent them from driving are lesser. Talking about experiences in the film industry that effect women doesn't invalidate the experiences of working class women. Talking about a woman's choice to have children doesn't make that woman more important than women who are childfree, and vice versa. Referring to your breasts as a part of your body, your femininty, your female experience, your womanhood, and how you are perceived as female does NOT imply that women without breasts are nkt female.
I feel like this comes from the same attitude that causes many women to wholeheartedly reject feminism: the attitude that because they live a socially acceptable feminine lifestyle and are not bothered personally by whatever misogyny may be in their lives, no one should be, because everyone should think of THEIR experience first and feel the same way they do.
I don't feel that way. Even about this issue. I want trans women, black women, disabled women, religious women, and all kinds of women to be able to think of and discuss their own experiences, gender, and bodies without constantly being reminded of how they have to filter it for all other women first.
It's especially frustrating because this particular discussion ALWAYS falls on women. I guess it doesn't have as much opportunity to fall on men, but it stands out a lot as a result because no one even seems to bring it up. No one says men have to stop talking about their dicks because they might alienate transmen if they define their manhood that way. Fuck, no one is even openly critical of the fact that "manhood" is common and accepted slang for dicks. No one expects men to accommodate. And women have to pick up the slack on both sides, protecting men with vaginas and women without them.
It is so, so tiring. And it's not like I don't think there are more ways female-oriented spaces can be inclusive, but I hate this word policing and how misogyny gets put on the backburner over and over again.
But it's almost not worth arguing about. It's just so fucking exhausting. I am literally physically tired from this. It makes me feel like this shit isn't worth it. Sure, let's let other people determine how I talk about my gender, my body, my experiences. Let's stop caring, self. Let's give up and give in.
In a lot of ways I have. I let other people do the talking. Outside of this mostly dead blog I talk more about racism and LGBT rights, even though neither affect me directly. I don't even feel like it's worth examining my own position with my gender and sexuality sometimes. I get too much anxiety about how other people would judge me or find me unworthy.
*which, yes, is a wholly separate discussion from vaginas. Truthfully, vaginas in the specific almost never come up in period talks.
...my next post is going to be a more positive discussion of feminism in media, to make up for this feelingspew.