I laugh at cats

Woman: This is what I’ve seen and experienced.

Housework is not work. Sex work is not work. Emotional work is not work. Why? Because they don’t take effort? No, because women are supposed to provide them uncompensated, out of the goodness of our hearts.

As a feminist, I don’t think women should be drafted into war.

So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

It’s true; cats see us as giant dumb hairless babies. That’s why they bring us half-dead prey– to teach us how to hunt and eat properly. That’s why they attack when we rub their bellies– that’s how parent cats teach kittens to defend themselves. That’s also why they meow– cats communicate with other adults on a frequency we can’t hear, but meow at kittens because their ears aren’t fully developed. They even specialized a set of meows they use only for humans, because we are especially deaf babies.

So often we try to make other people feel better by minimizing their pain, by telling them that it will get better (which it will) or that there are worse things in the world (which there are). But that’s not what I actually needed. What I actually needed was for someone to tell me that it hurt because it mattered. I have found this very useful to think about over the years, and I find that it is a lot easier and more bearable to be sad when you aren’t constantly berating yourself for being sad.

Sure, I’m sad, but I’m not looking to soothe that sadness by replacing it with a new relationship. Women are allowed to be sad, and they’re allowed to be single, and they don’t need to hear that one day a man is going to make it all go away by telling her she is good enough again. She’s good enough as she is.