the thing about some men is that they want you to remember, at all times, that you are underneath them. that with one word or look or "joke", you will stay beneath them. that even "exceptions" to the rule are not true exceptions - the commonly cited statistic that one in eight men believe they could win against serena williams.
women's gymnastics is often not seen as real gymnastics. whatever the fuck non-euclidian horrors rhythmic gymnasts are capable of, it's often tamped down as being not a sport. some of the most dominant athletes in the world are women. nobody watches women's soccer. despite years of dancing and being built like a fucking brick, men always assume they're faster and stronger than i am. you wouldn't like what happens when they are incorrect. once while drunk at a guy's house i won a held-plank challenge by a solid minute. the party was over after that - he became exceedingly violent.
what i mean is that you can be perfect, and they still think you're ... lacking, somehow. i hope you understand i'm trying to express a neutral statement when i say: taylor swift was the possibly the most patriarchy-palatable, straight-down-the-line woman we could churn out. she is white, conventionally attractive, usually pretty mild in personality. say what you will about her (and you should, she's a billionaire, she can handle it), but a few things seem to be true about her: 1. she can write a damn catchy song, and 2. the eras tour truly was a massive commercial success and was also genuinely an impressive feat of human athleticism and performance.
i don't know if she deserves the title of "woman of the year," i'm not debating that in this post. what i am saying is that she was named Woman of The Year, and then an untalented man got onstage at the golden globes and made fun of her for attending her boyfriend's football games. what i am saying is that this woman altered local economies - and her dating life is still being made into a "harmless" punchline. the camera panned, greedy, over to her downing a full glass of champagne. congratulations taylor! you are woman of the year! but you are a woman. even her.
fuck, man. write better material.
a guy gets onstage at a college graduation and despite the fact like half the crowd is made up of women, he spends a significant proportion of it warning these people - who spent possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education - that they were lied to. that the "real" meaning of femininity is motherhood. that they shouldn't rest on the laurels of that education-they-paid-for but instead throw it away to kneel at a man's heel. imagine that. sweating in your godawful polyester gown (that you also had to pay for!), fresh out of 4 years of pushing yourself ever-harder: and some guy you've never met - who knows nothing about you - he reminds you this "win" is a pyrrhic one at best. you really shouldn't consider yourself that extraordinary. you're still a woman, even after years of study.
god forbid you are not a pretty woman, but if you are pretty, you must be dumb. god forbid you are not ablebodied or white or cis or straight or good at swallowing. you must be beneath a man, or else they are not a man. the equation for masculinity seems to just be: that which is not a woman or womanly (god forbid). anything "feminine" is thereby anathema. to engage in "feminine" things such as therapy, getting a hug from a friend, or crying - it is giving up ones manhood. therefore women need to be put in their place to ensure that masculinity is protected.
this is something i have struggled to explain to terfs - they are not doing the work of feminism, but rather the patriarchy. by asserting that women and men must be (on some secret level) oppositional and in conflict, they also assume that being a woman is akin to being another species. but bigotry does not stem from observational truths or clarity - that is what makes it bigotry. there was nothing in my childhood that made me fundamentally different from my brother. we are treated differently nonetheless. to assert there is some biological drive that enforces my gender role is to assert that women have a gendered role. men do not see women as equal to them not because of biological reality - but instead because the core tenant of the patriarchy is that women aren't full, realized people.
we are told from a very young age to excuse misbehavior as a single man's choice - not all men. it is not all men, just that one guy. all women are gold-digging bitches who belong in the kitchen - but if a man is mean, bigoted, or violent to you, it's just that particular guy, and that means nothing about men-as-a-whole. it is only one guy who got mad when you gently rejected him. it is only one guy who warns her this trophy is heavy, are you sure you can hold it? it is only one guy who smashes her face into the cake. it is only one guy talking into a mic about hating our bodily autonomy.
i have just found that they often wait until the moment we actually seem to be upstaging them. you sit in a meeting where you're presenting your own findings and he says get me a coffee? or you run to the end of the marathon and are about to finish first and he pushes your kids out in front of you. you win the chess game and they make some comment akin to well, you're ugly away. we can be the billionaire and get the dream life and finally fucking do it and yet! still! they have this strange, visceral urge to say well actually, if you think you're so great -
it's not one just one guy. it's one in eight.
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I find it a bit strange how it's okay and normal to say trans men have 'afab privilege' but if you say trans women have 'amab privilege', that's bad and wrong and incorrect and also maybe you should kill yourself. strange stuff
somehow trans men were 'socialised female' and therefore can 'get away with being women' but trans women were not 'socialised male' and can't 'get away with being men' cos there's something inherently feminine, inherently queer about them.
though, i spent my whole life being called gay, getting asked if i was a butch lesbian, getting asked if i was a tranny, cos i wore pants [girls!] instead of skirts, cos i wore shirts [girls!] instead of blouses, cos i wouldn't wear dresses and would prefer [girls!] formal wear that weren't dresses, cos i liked bionicle instead of dolls, cos i played video games, cos i swore, cos i liked heavier music, cos my favourite colour wasn't pink, cos i wore caps. i would not say i fit into girlhood at all, actually.
but this masculinity was inherent to me, it still is, i couldn't and can not change it (despite trying, very hard, to my detriment) so i ALWAYS stuck out as being 'too masculine' for other girls. and then i come into queer spaces and i'm 'too masculine' for other queer people - but that's besides the point, currently.
so, currently, when i see people say 'trans women aren't "socialised male," that's not real, they always stick out as "other"' and then turn around and say 'trans men have afab privilege, they can be women to get away with things, they fit into girlhood so well' I can't help but become incredibly fucking frustrated. this is not true and actually it's something we have in common! neither of us were socialised 'correctly' cos we're both trans and raised amongst peers who were not trans!
everything from masculine girls to trans men do not fit into 'girlhood' cos masculinity is not what girlhood is meant to be. this shouldn't be hard to grasp. this is why the 'socialised' concept is bullshit cos it's founded on whatever was forced upon you as a kid and if you don't fit that standard you will not be socialised that way due to, in large part, being fucking ostracised from everyone else. and that doesn't mean there won't be things to unlearn, i know very many trans men who were very feminine for a long time and the opposite for trans women, but someone who clearly cannot fit what's being pushed onto them is going to come off as 'strange' and 'uncanny' to the people who can fit into what's pushed onto them.
but the way people talk about this really highlights to me that yous don't want to consider us trans in the first place - transness is for trans women and not for trans men, socialisation concepts are fake when it comes to trans women but real when it comes to trans men cos they're not really trans, 'amab privilege' would get you branded a TERF or radfem saying it to a trans woman but it's fine to say trans men, trans men have 'afab privilege' cos we're not trans, we're just women. you know until we get a little too rowdy and then we're not trans, we're just men.
maybe i'm just jaded and bitter. idk
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Heyyyyy I'm fully in love with your itty bittys au. The name, the concept, the art etc. But you might want to change the name because apparently "itty bittys" is the tag for small breasts. You could imagine looking for fan art of a children's show and getting bombarded with nudes is a little startling.
(Btw I love your overly affectionate uncle jorgon so much! May we have some more of jorgon just being affectionate and silly?)
ITS A TAG FOR WHAT. HUH. WHAT. OUGH.
This knowledge has haunted me for weeks. Ever since I got this ask. It’s too late to fix that now. They’re just. Itty Bitty for me :(
ANYWAYS!!!! Jorgen!!! Jorgen loves his nephews. They like being launched from his biceps when he flexed them. Or, well, Timmy likes being launched. Peri, not so much. But Peri’s NOT a crybaby about it!!! He’s being VERY very brave!!!!
Bitties Series: [Start] > [Previous] > [Next]
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Nesta should tell Feyre she's sorry for this. Feyre should tell Nesta she's sorry for that. WRONG! Clearly, none of y'all have a sister
Like I don't think I've ever said "I'm sorry" to my sister before. Instead, you ask if they want to go get Taco Bell and then you sit in the parking lot and shit talk about your father. That's what apologies between sisters actually look like
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Every time I see 'men DNI' I roll my eyes so hard. Imagine someone had 'women DNI', people would lose their shit lmfao. Like we're not children. Believe it or not, the 'opposite' gender won't give you cooties. Your treehouse won't be contaminated.
edit: I know men are just as immature as women with this, I know there are adults of any gender who still behave as children. I shouldn't have said 'imagine if men did this' because all people can focus on is that tiny bit and be like "BUT MEN DO IT TOO!!!111!11!1". Additionally, read the tags next time before thinking I'm a huge advocate for binary, nonlesbian men interacting with lesbian porn (though the fact that I support lesboys in general is enough to make the people screaming at me think I'm stupid anyway).
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