This is a piece of information about me
I've never been oppressed.
I suspect that there is a fairly large segment of the human experience that I will never really understand, because I've never been oppressed.
In statistical, demographic terms, I fit pretty squarely in the majority - certainly enough that I can move in the majority without anyone questioning my presence or trying to limit my freedoms, while simultaneously being enough outside the norm that I am accepted into, you know, the fun part of society.
I dated a girl briefly when I was a teenager. She was in her early twenties. She told me I was the first girl she'd ever dated who'd been not only willing to hold her hand in public, but had done it without even thinking. I didn't know how to explain to her, then, that it was not some defiant gesture of strength and will on my part, but really a kind of innocence; this was Santa Fe, for christ's sake, and not only had *I* never been oppressed, I expected that nobody else would be oppressed, either. It simply didn't occur to me to be afraid - of consequences, of what people would think, of being shunned or glared at or attacked for it.
I am a woman. In the sense of who's running the world, that is the only minority I fit into. I must face the potential of having my rights taken away - Roe v. Wade, etc. Some pharmacies will not dispense birth control. That is their prerogative. Wages are still not equalized. That is not acceptable. It is infinitely more difficult for a woman who has children to have a successful career; some of the reasons for that make perfect sense. Some do not.
There are things that must be fought for. But the only times I've ever felt even remotely oppressed were when I ran into some misogynist jerk who was clearly in need of castration. It never, not once, not *ever* affected my feelings about myself and my role as a woman. I was raised hella strong, and I was raised with absolutely surety that my gender would never hold me back. There are things that must be fought for, but I've always been confident they will, eventually, be won.
I've rarely felt unsafe. I can recall only once that I felt unsafe because I was a woman (rather than because it was 1 am and I was alone on the street), and that was also because I was extremely young. I do not feel that my gender makes me a target. I have never been attacked.
I've had people, older, conservative people, talk to me for fifteen minutes and not notice any of my completely obvious, uncovered tattoos. I suspect it is something in the way I hold myself and speak to people. Also, many of my tattoos look like jewelry; I imagine that makes it easier for people's eyes to pass over them. The point, however, is that I can do the thing where people see more or less what they want to see when they look at me. My mama calls it glamour. I think of it as a kind of social engineering.
The point is: I've never been oppressed. I didn't even understand that things like racism and homophobia were *current* problems in the world until I was a teenager; I lived a childhood free of them, because of my wonderful parents and the way that I was raised. I thought they only existed in books. And while I don't think that means that I don't now see oppression for what it is, I think the inability to really know what it feels like is always going to make my viewpoint just a little bit blinkered.
I suspect that there is a fairly large segment of the human experience that I will never really understand, because I've never been oppressed.
In statistical, demographic terms, I fit pretty squarely in the majority - certainly enough that I can move in the majority without anyone questioning my presence or trying to limit my freedoms, while simultaneously being enough outside the norm that I am accepted into, you know, the fun part of society.
I dated a girl briefly when I was a teenager. She was in her early twenties. She told me I was the first girl she'd ever dated who'd been not only willing to hold her hand in public, but had done it without even thinking. I didn't know how to explain to her, then, that it was not some defiant gesture of strength and will on my part, but really a kind of innocence; this was Santa Fe, for christ's sake, and not only had *I* never been oppressed, I expected that nobody else would be oppressed, either. It simply didn't occur to me to be afraid - of consequences, of what people would think, of being shunned or glared at or attacked for it.
I am a woman. In the sense of who's running the world, that is the only minority I fit into. I must face the potential of having my rights taken away - Roe v. Wade, etc. Some pharmacies will not dispense birth control. That is their prerogative. Wages are still not equalized. That is not acceptable. It is infinitely more difficult for a woman who has children to have a successful career; some of the reasons for that make perfect sense. Some do not.
There are things that must be fought for. But the only times I've ever felt even remotely oppressed were when I ran into some misogynist jerk who was clearly in need of castration. It never, not once, not *ever* affected my feelings about myself and my role as a woman. I was raised hella strong, and I was raised with absolutely surety that my gender would never hold me back. There are things that must be fought for, but I've always been confident they will, eventually, be won.
I've rarely felt unsafe. I can recall only once that I felt unsafe because I was a woman (rather than because it was 1 am and I was alone on the street), and that was also because I was extremely young. I do not feel that my gender makes me a target. I have never been attacked.
I've had people, older, conservative people, talk to me for fifteen minutes and not notice any of my completely obvious, uncovered tattoos. I suspect it is something in the way I hold myself and speak to people. Also, many of my tattoos look like jewelry; I imagine that makes it easier for people's eyes to pass over them. The point, however, is that I can do the thing where people see more or less what they want to see when they look at me. My mama calls it glamour. I think of it as a kind of social engineering.
The point is: I've never been oppressed. I didn't even understand that things like racism and homophobia were *current* problems in the world until I was a teenager; I lived a childhood free of them, because of my wonderful parents and the way that I was raised. I thought they only existed in books. And while I don't think that means that I don't now see oppression for what it is, I think the inability to really know what it feels like is always going to make my viewpoint just a little bit blinkered.