my wife and i were talking over breakfast about feminism and stuff, and how our objectification is one part of our oppression, and suddenly she asks me, "How do we get women to stop thinking of ourselves as objects?"

I was floored, because in all my thinking about this stuff, all the discussions about how men treat women and the male gaze and everything I never asked myself such a simple question.

Instantly I was like, we need to make a list of how we objectify ourselves, then we can know what behaviors to stop.

So here's what I can think of so far

wearing makeup

looking in shop windows to check your appearance

feeling the need to be dressed ‘right’ all the time

nail polish

constantly checking other women’s outfits to see if i would look good in them

plastic surgery / beauty procedures like laser hair removal

concerned about puffy eyes, concerned about skin quality

“do i look good in this” = do i look sexy in this / clothes that show off your butt / clothes with sexy holes / wearing sports tights

uncomfortable clothes / accepting discomfort: ex: baby headbands, high heels

food restriction

worrying about wrinkles gray hair

my brain: no. you look disgusting.

me: why? what's wrong? the shoes? the shirt?

my brain: everything. you look like 2015 matt champion

me: but i-

Self-degradation is not an apology. Victimizing yourself does not make a person you emotionally or physically harmed feel better, it just brings the focus back onto you instead of on their feelings.

This can be invalidating and painful to the person you hurt. Instead of having their experience justified, they then feel guilty and pressure to attend to your emotional needs.

You know, yesterday I gave Max this whole spiel that basically condenses to: I'm sorry I was gruff because I'm aware this is hard for you but I just don't want you to waste your life chasing after a girl who might not even love you, sorry. 

And he accepted that apology and we've actually kind of gotten back to talking like we did before he became quite depressed. Maybe his antidepressants are working or maybe he's just getting out of his depression-I don't know.

Regardless, I didn't start writing this to talk about Max's problems. I wanted to talk about my problems (though they often seem small in comparison to his).

Even though I was absolved from the guilt of saying what I said to Max I still feel like I should apologize. Not even that I should just apologize for any of the things I've said to Max but just that I should apologize for . . . pretty much everything.

I don't know.

I guess my self-degradation is finally getting the better of me. 

That or I'm becoming a Canadian with this whole "I should say sorry for everything" feeling. 

I guess it's a good thing I want to move to Canada.

i found a way to not run away

i found a way to know new things

i found a way to know what's not knowable

this makes anybody better than other people

everything is a power game

(i should have cited that bc apparently someone can academically discover that lolLOL jokeyjokes(          )()()

dear god,

how can i know what hasn't been known before

to me (who? ... who cares, to people)

people underestimate prayer

bc a mechanism

which allows one to ask one's self

what one's self doesn't already know

is a superior mechanism

but people discount it,

the device,

bc they are ensconced

with self-security slash

/ insecurity

but not-knowing

and a confessant

not-knowing,

at that,

is what prayer means,

which is self-degrading

and the material of acknowledged evolution.#is self degrading

goodnight and god bless.

muuu muuu muuah