When I talk about something bad I've experienced, Baked In to my experience as A Woman, I am not "making my little cousins feel like shit for being women", because I am talking in a space with, allegedly, adults. I am not bringing my problems to children in the first place. That said, I don't HAVE to make my baby cousin feel bad, because she's already experienced sexual harassment in her life, and she's only 8, and doesn't even understand what any of it means yet. And everyone in her family can try to instill confidence in her, and never talk about our bodies in a negative way. But she can still feel like she's too chubby, because she still goes to school, and talks to other kids and their parents, and still sees ads, and still watches tv. We can be positive, but we can't fix the root of the problem. And I don't HAVE to tell trans women that "pain is a rite of passage", because that's not a Rule being enforced (by me), because I've already sat and listened to my friend complain about constantly shaving as a Baseline necessity and how it hurts her skin and she has to put makeup onto fresh cuts on her face because going out without a full face of properly feminine makeup would make her life worse, and being anything less than thin and lithe makes her "less feminine", and ALL the things that can make her "more feminine" are behind a paywall. And I can try to make her feel better, and I can hear her experiencing the tenfold version of problems I relate to, but I can't fix the root cause of her problems by just telling her not to complain. Forcing happiness as a core personality trait for women is not the Girlboss Feminist move that you think it is, and no amount of gender euphoria in the world will make you immune to systemic oppression.
