(January 2, 2015 at 7:23 am)fr0d0 Wrote: I'm strongly in favour of womens rights. I disagree with treating the sexes as if there were no difference, which sadly still seems what many feminists want to achieve. To me, celebrating the difference and devaluing neither is the ideal. Human gender covers every possible permutation and that needs to be free to practice.
I am for treating people as individuals. Most men are stronger and bigger then most women. Women bodies evolved for pregnancy and nursing. Other then that, most gender differences are very minimal.
It might sound strange but I think that the statement, "But men and women are different" has done more to harm my self esteem then almost any other statement I have heard people make. In some ways, I fit in the perception of what is seen as typically feminine. I like kids and would have had more through adoption if we could have afforded them. Cooking big meals makes me super happy.
However, there are a lot of ways that I don't fit what women are supposed to do or like. Colors. There are three shades of colors: light, medium and dark. No matter how many times my friends tell me that I should know that sky blue is a different then other kinds of light blue, they all looking freaking blue to me. And no matter what the stereotype of women being able to dress their male friends, I can't do it. I have no sense of style or fashion. Don't even start me on potpourri. I don't understand sticks and shriveled buds in a bowl or why I am supposed to decorate the bathroom anyway.
All those are minor things that added up to make me feel as if I am weird and out of place. My own very high libido made me a miserable teenage especially because I was taught that being able to separate sex from emotions was something only guys did. If I had sex just to have sex, I was a sluts and slut doesn't just mean a promiscuous woman. It also carries with it the connotation that the woman is stupid, unclean, worthy of mockery or disrespect etc. By 16, I thought about sex all the damn time and it didn't help my grades any. I would have been much more relaxed if I had just had sex.
When I was younger there was a saying that only ugly women were funny. The result was that I didn't make jokes in front of men. This means that a couple of men that I got in serious relationships with didn't know a huge part of who I am.
So, yeah. I hate when people say but men and women are just different. I no more want people to make assumptions about me based on the fact that I have a vagina then you want people to make assumptions on you based on the fact that you have a penis.
Rant over
