i am living. i remember you.

sometimes i get home from an event with my family and i just have to sit in my car for a second & read that one sarah schulman quote on familial homophobia

ladies… has anyone ever told you it’s okay to be feminine 🩷 i’m sure no one has ever ever ever reinforced this deeply held secret, that’s it’s okay for you to be feminine. 🩷 i know the world totally tries to tell you that you have to be manly and masculine and grow your body hair and eat as much as you want and get strong and stand up for yourself and make waves and take up space and show your bare face and show your anger. but it’s okay to do the exact opposite actually. 🩷 it’s okay to shrink yourself down to the exact same mold every other woman is expected to conform to. 🩷 did you know that it’s okay to be feminine. 🩷 did you know it’s okay to be feminine. 🩷 did you know it’s okay to be feminine. 🩷 has anyone ever told you it’s okay to be feminine. 🩷 will you be feminine. 🩷 will you be feminine. 🩷 will you be feminine. 🩷 will you just be feminine already. 🩷🩷🩷

scariest thing is when you're a kid in a huge family run by women and then you go over to a house that's deeply patriarchal & misogynistic. i remember when i was 8 years old and i got invited over to my friend's house for a big birthday party with her entire extended family. after the enormous lunch that served over 30 people, i got called into the kitchen to do literally hundreds of dishes, alongside all the other little girls and women. not only were the boys our age all excused from the meal to go play, but all the grown men went to the living room to watch sports together and drink. i couldn't believe it. i asked why some of the grownups were watching TV but the girls had to clean up and all the women just laughed and laughed at me.

as a teenager when i learned the word "sexist" and used it the older women balked at it and tried to convince me this arrangement was a good thing actually because women need space from men, and cleaning in the kitchen after parties is a sacred domain of safety. and i was like actually i think needing private safety from your own husbands, sons, and brothers sounds even worse. like do you understand you somehow made this even more troubling than it already was

like i think it's fine if a bunch of sister-in-laws/wives want time together without their husbands & brothers to talk together in camaraderie. i'm not judging that. obviously. but dare i ask why the women's meetup could only take place while doing manual labor for a nearby room full of men

reblog to give your headache to elon musk instead