Yeah, I’m Just A Girl
Not strictly true. I’m a grown woman. And I don’t much take offense at the term girl, because that means to me a joviality and lightness that I didn’t have when I was a girl, and it’s the inherently feminine part of me that I think about when I think about the “girly” aspects of myself. I’m tough, and cranky, but also sappy, sparkly, cruel, deeply empathetic, shy, loud, talkative, withdrawn. I’m not an enigma, or an anomaly, but I might be a constant contradiction.
And I’m inspired, in the worst way possible, by this amazing post:http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/08/terrible-bargain-we-have-regretfully.html
I do a lot of feeling superior to younger feminists these days, thinking, I went through that. You just get over it. You stop making everything an issue. You live in the world. And you know what, I’m wrong. Fuck it. I’m wrong.
Because on a regular basis, I - the at one time most outspoken feminist I knew - accept things around me that make me lose a small piece of myself at every turn. I accept, everyday, these things from men:
-When you tell a joke and it objectifies women, that hurts me.
-When you act like I can’t understand something because I’m a girl, that hurts me.
-When you tell me I like a fucking band because I’m a girl, or don’t like one because I’m a girl, and not because I’m different than you, that hurts me.
-When you tell me, with that threat in your voice, booze or no booze, that you’ll never let anyone trap you, you’re hurting me.
-When you make me feel guilty for not letting you ogle me, touch me, leer at me, demean me, you hurt me.
-When you act like my voice isn’t important, you’re hurting me.
-When you talk about women’s bodies, women’s actions, women’s souls like they’re just part of a package, objects, lesser things, you hurt me. You hurt your mothers, your sisters, your wives, your daughters.
-When you act like saying something sexual, or sexualized, in front of me is okay, knowing I won’t say anything because to do so would reveal weakness on my end, you hurt me. And you’re a fucking asshole.
-When you’re afraid of me being smarter than you, taller than you, fatter than you, hotter than you, uglier than you, and you lash out at me because of it, you hurt me.
-When I make excuses for you because you hurt me, I can only blame myself.
-When I say, “That’s just a guy thing,” I hurt myself, and the excuses I make for that behavior, hurt all the women I know.
-When I laugh at your stupid jokes, your insults, your objectification to protect myself an my place in my professional or personal universe, that hurts all of us. That even hurts you for letting you think that behavior is okay.
I could go on. I should go on. And in my head I will. But for now, it’s a place to start, a time to look back and recognize that I haven’t lost my voice, and maybe I haven’t actually lost my fight.
