So I've been chewing on an essay I read recently quite a bit over the last few days. It is titled "Misogyny, up close and personal." I'll just let you sit with that for a minute. Holy Hera, did this girl get it right.
I have sat with boys that I love and heard some truly unspeakably offensive things about women, been in situations where a boyfriend (not just mine) didn't say anything when his guy friends said something offensive about women and ha ha bloody fucking ha, ain't that the truth, take my wife please, been at work in offices, and heard things said about women, in front of women, to women, and all that I couldn't begin to possibly repeat because I reached my saturation point so damn long ago I can't even contain them anymore. Rape is one thing, domestic violence another, knowing what it feels like to enter a public bathroom - say, at your university - and look under the stalls to see if an attacker might possibly be waiting, to walk by yourself in a dark lot to your car trying to not look like a target and just get in the fucking car and then check the back seat to make sure no attacker is there...all of these things are what we as women deal with. Every. Day.
Pile on top of that the thing that gets me the most: the ordinary, quotidian misogyny, the seeming innocuous 'joke' or comment or marketing campaign or come-on when you're just fucking hanging out at a party or going to work or buying milk. It is all the time, every day, day in, and day out, for a woman.
I get cat called every time I leave the house. Every time. Every day, every time. Honked at, cat called, whistled at, and I have been followed, yes, followed, by a male, more often than I can count - I would say it happens on average about once a week. I get hit on at the store, at the dmv, in the elevator going to work, walking to lunch...you get the picture. None of the invitations were invited or welcome or flattering (one guy friend once told me, "it's your fault for being so pretty." huh? um, no? no.). I'm a private, quiet person by nature although I'm overly effusive and garrulous with my friends, and I learned somewhere in shooting up to about 5'9" at first and then up & up to about six feet not to ever, ever make eye contact with anyone when I walk into a room. It's a trick I learned somehow out of a survival instinct - not to ever invite any vampires in. My life, my body, my pussy, my rules. Right? (Just say 'right.')
Along the lines somewhere in there, I got mad as hell and wasn't going to take it any more. If my guy friends wouldn't let someone call them a faggot (how awful to be that right? sigh.) or punk em out, and they would throw blows to make that point - then I certainly had a fight too. It was never a decision. It was that I wouldn't take it anymore. I have only ever punched men. And every last one of them had it coming. I go easy too. Most of them are - well I'd say pussies but we all know pussy is the strongest sweetest thing there is, now don't we? I've had my crotch grabbed (my guy friends intervened when they thought I would actually kill the guy when I had my hand around his neck, up against a wall), my skirt lifted up, my breasts fondled, been cornered and followed and otherwise physically threatened and objectified by men, and not just a handful of times. A lot. Often. Daily.
And I'm one of the lucky ones. That, my friends, is a teeny, tiny fly in your chardonnay compared to the other horrific, appalling, unspeakable things that are perpetrated on women, all the time, every day, all over the world.
So, yeah. I'm a Feminist. I certainly hope that won't be a fucking problem for you.
And then, the guys that think they want to help, that want to try, will tell you this. "Well violence happens to men too. Men are objectified by women too." Like, well, you're not alone.
No.
NO dude. It pales, it does not even begin to prepare you for what it might possibly be like to be a woman, and just for one day. You do NOT know what it is like, you simply do not have the first fucking inkling of what it is like to be followed, objectified, in constant threat, treated like a second class citizen even when you're one of the smartest in the room. At. All. You, my friend, have a different pair, and so you could not possibly, possibly begin to know what one second, one minute, one full, long day in the life of a girl or woman feels like. You will never, ever begin to possibly know or understand. Until you start to listen to us. And really hear.
I bet on your Momma's best dress that if you were to get dressed as a woman A. You wouldn't look so good, B. You would immediately realize how inadequate you looked as a woman (welcome, little dears, to our world, and don't cry Sweetie), and C. Shit is rough for us.
All day.
Every day.
And I'm not saying we don't all have our challenges but this is my time to say my thing, I got the mic, and I'm going to say what needs to be said, listened to, and understood, somehow.
You got all that, you have all of that, and then you pile on the seemingly innocuous comments, the random laughing at an inappropriate, offensive, lots of times downright violent joke about women (the two black eyes, told her twice already? love that one), in a room full of men that want to alpha dog each other into oblivion (and of course it's the theta dogs doing this trying to jockey to the forefront), and sitting there, as a woman, and sighing. Thinking - are they really not human to you? Women? Really?
Let me clear my throat.
The difference between the Civil Rights movement and Feminism is that sexual politics is just that - sexual politics. The Civil Rights movement never entered the bedroom. Thus the implicit threat that if you're a feminist, you hate men, and therefore He will never get laid again. And He sure as hell isn't going to let that happen. But wanting equality regardless of gender, not wanting to be objectified, not wanting to hear jokes that aren't funny, about women, when we all know you have mothers and sisters and grandmas and maybe girlfriends, simply is not mutually exclusive to liking men and most of the time enjoying their company. It's that we want equality. We want to be seen and heard. We should be treated as human. At least. It isn't a threat to say "stop raping us" or, "you know what, this is my ass, not yours to grab" or "I work here too, as an equal, just like you." It is at a very minimum, our right. At a fucking minimum. Gore Vidal once wrote that men are afraid of giving women any power, because then women might treat men as horrifically as men have treated them. He is right. He pretty much always is.
So gentlemen, I say to you thus: you are either with us, or against us. You have every chance to fight the good fight along with us. Because it happens to us. Every. Day.
I once sat, late one night in SF, at a diner, with 3 of my best boys, one of them my dear boyfriend at the time. And the girl that took us out, well her male roommate came to the table to join us after the parties and the bars. He seemed like an intellectual, he seemed cool and inadequate and nerdy, and maybe too self-aware. So late toward the end of enjoying our french fries and gravy at 4am, he said "I hate Feminists." I think to this day that maybe what he meant was "I hate bitches" (fair enough), or "I hate it when people act irrationally and yell at me" (also fair) but it seemed to be targeted directly at women, and particularly those that are aware of a need for equality? I guess? So I kind of understood his point and I pick my battles, so I just sort of shook my head rather than choosing once again to be That Girl that makes waves and points out What You Just Said and How is That OK?
My guy friends laughed, including my boyfriend who probably thought I was going to crucify the poor guy, said, without even looking at me, "you picked the wrong table to say that at, man." I didn't even have to say a word.
That was a good night.
So now, I give you this. Woman, I love ya, high five, I'm here fighting the good fight too. One of the best things I've read in a very long time.
I have sat with boys that I love and heard some truly unspeakably offensive things about women, been in situations where a boyfriend (not just mine) didn't say anything when his guy friends said something offensive about women and ha ha bloody fucking ha, ain't that the truth, take my wife please, been at work in offices, and heard things said about women, in front of women, to women, and all that I couldn't begin to possibly repeat because I reached my saturation point so damn long ago I can't even contain them anymore. Rape is one thing, domestic violence another, knowing what it feels like to enter a public bathroom - say, at your university - and look under the stalls to see if an attacker might possibly be waiting, to walk by yourself in a dark lot to your car trying to not look like a target and just get in the fucking car and then check the back seat to make sure no attacker is there...all of these things are what we as women deal with. Every. Day.
Pile on top of that the thing that gets me the most: the ordinary, quotidian misogyny, the seeming innocuous 'joke' or comment or marketing campaign or come-on when you're just fucking hanging out at a party or going to work or buying milk. It is all the time, every day, day in, and day out, for a woman.
I get cat called every time I leave the house. Every time. Every day, every time. Honked at, cat called, whistled at, and I have been followed, yes, followed, by a male, more often than I can count - I would say it happens on average about once a week. I get hit on at the store, at the dmv, in the elevator going to work, walking to lunch...you get the picture. None of the invitations were invited or welcome or flattering (one guy friend once told me, "it's your fault for being so pretty." huh? um, no? no.). I'm a private, quiet person by nature although I'm overly effusive and garrulous with my friends, and I learned somewhere in shooting up to about 5'9" at first and then up & up to about six feet not to ever, ever make eye contact with anyone when I walk into a room. It's a trick I learned somehow out of a survival instinct - not to ever invite any vampires in. My life, my body, my pussy, my rules. Right? (Just say 'right.')
Along the lines somewhere in there, I got mad as hell and wasn't going to take it any more. If my guy friends wouldn't let someone call them a faggot (how awful to be that right? sigh.) or punk em out, and they would throw blows to make that point - then I certainly had a fight too. It was never a decision. It was that I wouldn't take it anymore. I have only ever punched men. And every last one of them had it coming. I go easy too. Most of them are - well I'd say pussies but we all know pussy is the strongest sweetest thing there is, now don't we? I've had my crotch grabbed (my guy friends intervened when they thought I would actually kill the guy when I had my hand around his neck, up against a wall), my skirt lifted up, my breasts fondled, been cornered and followed and otherwise physically threatened and objectified by men, and not just a handful of times. A lot. Often. Daily.
And I'm one of the lucky ones. That, my friends, is a teeny, tiny fly in your chardonnay compared to the other horrific, appalling, unspeakable things that are perpetrated on women, all the time, every day, all over the world.
So, yeah. I'm a Feminist. I certainly hope that won't be a fucking problem for you.
And then, the guys that think they want to help, that want to try, will tell you this. "Well violence happens to men too. Men are objectified by women too." Like, well, you're not alone.
No.
NO dude. It pales, it does not even begin to prepare you for what it might possibly be like to be a woman, and just for one day. You do NOT know what it is like, you simply do not have the first fucking inkling of what it is like to be followed, objectified, in constant threat, treated like a second class citizen even when you're one of the smartest in the room. At. All. You, my friend, have a different pair, and so you could not possibly, possibly begin to know what one second, one minute, one full, long day in the life of a girl or woman feels like. You will never, ever begin to possibly know or understand. Until you start to listen to us. And really hear.
I bet on your Momma's best dress that if you were to get dressed as a woman A. You wouldn't look so good, B. You would immediately realize how inadequate you looked as a woman (welcome, little dears, to our world, and don't cry Sweetie), and C. Shit is rough for us.
All day.
Every day.
And I'm not saying we don't all have our challenges but this is my time to say my thing, I got the mic, and I'm going to say what needs to be said, listened to, and understood, somehow.
You got all that, you have all of that, and then you pile on the seemingly innocuous comments, the random laughing at an inappropriate, offensive, lots of times downright violent joke about women (the two black eyes, told her twice already? love that one), in a room full of men that want to alpha dog each other into oblivion (and of course it's the theta dogs doing this trying to jockey to the forefront), and sitting there, as a woman, and sighing. Thinking - are they really not human to you? Women? Really?
Let me clear my throat.
The difference between the Civil Rights movement and Feminism is that sexual politics is just that - sexual politics. The Civil Rights movement never entered the bedroom. Thus the implicit threat that if you're a feminist, you hate men, and therefore He will never get laid again. And He sure as hell isn't going to let that happen. But wanting equality regardless of gender, not wanting to be objectified, not wanting to hear jokes that aren't funny, about women, when we all know you have mothers and sisters and grandmas and maybe girlfriends, simply is not mutually exclusive to liking men and most of the time enjoying their company. It's that we want equality. We want to be seen and heard. We should be treated as human. At least. It isn't a threat to say "stop raping us" or, "you know what, this is my ass, not yours to grab" or "I work here too, as an equal, just like you." It is at a very minimum, our right. At a fucking minimum. Gore Vidal once wrote that men are afraid of giving women any power, because then women might treat men as horrifically as men have treated them. He is right. He pretty much always is.
So gentlemen, I say to you thus: you are either with us, or against us. You have every chance to fight the good fight along with us. Because it happens to us. Every. Day.
I once sat, late one night in SF, at a diner, with 3 of my best boys, one of them my dear boyfriend at the time. And the girl that took us out, well her male roommate came to the table to join us after the parties and the bars. He seemed like an intellectual, he seemed cool and inadequate and nerdy, and maybe too self-aware. So late toward the end of enjoying our french fries and gravy at 4am, he said "I hate Feminists." I think to this day that maybe what he meant was "I hate bitches" (fair enough), or "I hate it when people act irrationally and yell at me" (also fair) but it seemed to be targeted directly at women, and particularly those that are aware of a need for equality? I guess? So I kind of understood his point and I pick my battles, so I just sort of shook my head rather than choosing once again to be That Girl that makes waves and points out What You Just Said and How is That OK?
My guy friends laughed, including my boyfriend who probably thought I was going to crucify the poor guy, said, without even looking at me, "you picked the wrong table to say that at, man." I didn't even have to say a word.
That was a good night.
So now, I give you this. Woman, I love ya, high five, I'm here fighting the good fight too. One of the best things I've read in a very long time.
