Unlearning Femmephobia and Misogyny, and sharing my shame because I’m still learning how to navigate it.
So remember how a few months ago I wrote some thing about my confused gender identity vs gender expression vs trying to find a place to identify within a feminist politic? No? Well I did, an here’s an even longer ramble about that…
Rowan and I had a really long, intense conversation about this exact thing last night. I feel like this all brings up a lot of super valuable things, and I definitely relate to the frustrations of not being a ‘girl’ but getting lumped into this really femme, lady type of get-togethers, and talks. I struggle with getting angry and dismissive too about stereotypically ‘feminine’ things, and wondering if it’s just internalized misogyny, or an actual analysis/critique of cis-centric ways to looking at things, or both at the same time, and recognizing where those critiques can be valuable and where they can be fucked up. The spaces that I’m with people like this are often gendered in really typical ways too - we talk about crushes, or crafts, and while a good chat about crushes can be really fun, it often leaves me feeling alienated and wanting more. Political engagement beyond identity (cause really, fuck the navel gazing of ID politics - which is not to say it’s not important to talk about the ways oppressions intersect and play out in struggle, etc… but i digress…), more… something. I feel like I don’t quite have the language to talk about my critique yet as I’m still working it out, but it’s definitely something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
Also - bringing up that I’m not a ‘girl’ is still like, this totally terrifying thing for me, and thinking about which pronouns to use for myself generally makes my brain want to explode from anxiety - so there’s that too.
