MissRepresentation

I watched a bit of a documentary called MissRepresentation, and I gotta say it's one of the more depressing things I've seen in a while. Yeah, it's about feminism. I still hate the word, but I don't disagree with the concept behind it. My friend kinda educated me on the fact that "feminism" doesn't mean what I think it means, and I really shouldn't be hating on the word. Turns out what I thought was feminism falls under a sub-category of "radical feminism", and a lot of it is actually, well, written by men.

Often I have heard the phrase "a woman should be a woman and a man should be a man". The sentiment behind the expression is highly insulting- insinuating that a woman who does not fit the stereotypical image should be ashamed, and that a man is nothing if he is not "masculine". When I first heard it though, I thought it was kind of ridiculous. The words are so redundant, because anything a woman does should be considered womanly by definition- because she is a woman. And if something is both womanly and manly--- well isn't that just the way it is. Why do we have to look for exclusion or contradiction, when none exists fundamentally.

I find it difficult to accept that a woman is the same as a man. I mean, no, it's very obvious that they are not the same. I do find that as a poor excuse to refuse woman the same opportunities and privileges than men have. I think, for so long, we have viewed women in the context of men. When you study anatomy, you look at the model of a male body, and you know, "the female body is analogous to the male; the ovaries are the testes and the clitoris is the penis". This creates a false impression that being male is the norm, and being female is the derivative.

You can call me out on being pedantic here- but really, wouldn't it make so much more sense, if "human" was used as the basis, and then we separate into the paths of masculinity and femininity. That is- while women are not men, they are still human. I hope I don't need to draw like, a venn diagram or something to explain this to you.

And I think the world would be so much better if we stopped hating on women. Yeah, women get emotional and they PMS and sometimes they're just a bitch. But then, men get emotional and they don't have a uterus but damn they PMS as well- and guess what, men can be little bitches. It's so weird we don't call out the guys for it, but then every time a woman does something like that, woah it's a media sensation. So that's really what sexism is- you get called out for doing normal things, because you're female.

Yeah, female privilege exists. I don't deny that. I mean, it's kinda cool when you walk into a bar and people buy you drinks, yeah? But it only kinda works if you're like, young, and hot, and your tits are still perky. Like, you don't look at someone and just go, "wow, I can tell you have a great personality and you love volunteering in your spare time". The thing you gotta know though, is that your free drink might be roofie'd and you get raped at the end of the night. Ah, the catch 22.

Wait, but if you're a guy, it doesn't matter, right? Sex is sex is sex? I mean, while that is the prevailing joke, that's all it is. A fucking joke. Being forced to have sex with someone you don't want to is disgusting. Like, when you say "sex is sex", you're probs picturing some attractive like Emma Stone or Jennifer Lawrence- but like, if you just walk down the street, you just wouldn't feel sexually inclined towards like, most of the people on the street. Then even if it was some attractive person- does that make it ok? Nope, not even close. I mean, really, rape isn't sex. It's more along the lines of aggression, assault, exerting dominance.

When you talk about those phrases outside the context of rape, you're like, oh holy shit, isn't that what men are encouraged to do? Like, when someone talks down to me, I gotta "man up" because fuck that shit, I'm the fucking alpha. And I gotta put the fucking betas in their fucking place, because they can't mess with me. If someone insinuated that I couldn't "assert my dominance" or be aggressive and threatening, I'd probably try really hard to challenge that.

It's because I wasn't raised in a world where people told boys "don't respond with aggression, resolve it like a civil person because they're a fucking moron". Really we're encouraged to embrace our primitive instincts, to brawl it out in some ways, and I feel like that makes us more animal and less human. And I fucking hate that, because I thought I was above that. I thought I was smart and well-mannered and mild-tempered. Then you realize it's like, not-okay to be that way, and that's fucking terrible. Most people aren't full of natural aggression, but we can teach it and encourage it and eventually you get someone who throws a ballistic tantrum--- but it somehow still manages to surprise everyone?

So yeah, there are a lot of things I hate about how "men have to be men and women have to be women". As I always like to say, "we are who we are". Apparently it's hard to accept that, and people don't want you to accept that. So you try and change and change and change, but the thing is, whatever you change into is still... you. You never cease being yourself. Some other day I'm going to go into a separate rant about how homophobia is just misogyny in disguise, and how there's nothing wrong about taking it up the ass (if that's what you're into). I'll save it for another day though, because I've ranted plenty.