Not sure where this is going...

I have been there, hating women because of the "girl way" they act.

I have also been there, being hated because I didn't act like a "good girl" or a "nice girl" or what that person thought a feminist should act like.

Gender norms fuck us all over.

Some days I wear lipstick, watch hockey and talk on the phone.

Other days I like football, shoe shopping and shooting guns.

Some days I'm overtly intelligent, sexual and neurotic. Other days I'm forgetful, quiet and self-assured.

All of these are the days I "act like a woman". I act like a woman because I am biologically and gender presentationally an adult female who doesn't know any other way to act than like a woman.

I don't want to perpetrate misogyny. The world is sexist and misogynist enough that I don't have to be part of it. I don't have to like what someone acts like, but I can also realize that maybe that woman doesn't know she has other options. Maybe she doesn't know why she makes bad choices. Maybe she doesn't know that the socialization of gender norms begins the second a parent is told "what it is" after a child is born, and maybe they don't know the bulk of that socialization is bullshit.

I really don't know where I am going with this... I just saw this quote this morning and it reminded me of how I used to treat women different. It reminded me how I used to perpetuate my own misogyny. I reminded me that I stopped hating myself right around the same time I stopped seeing other woman as a threat to my desires.

It reminded me that even though we are 51% of the population, we're still considered a "special interest group" who needs to be placated, pandered to and infantilized instead of being considered what we are - the majority. Part of the reason that this still goes on is that women are hating women with the same kind of gender socialization as men are. I can't be part of it. I can't do it and not hate myself.


I still don't know why I wrote this.