#1 19-11-13 02:24:55

viva

pretty pretty princess

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the ladies be crazy

Oh people... this article kind of made me cry.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harris-oa … 59779.html

Go on then and read it, it's nothing new. Talk about gaslighting, how men treat women, how women treat themselves. But this one really hit me. It was a taste of how I feel when I, with great fear and great courage, do something so dumb and supposedly simple as tell the honest truth about how I feel and what I think, half-cringing as I do so because I'm sure I'm about to be labeled crazy and abandoned for more easy-going, fun-lovin' pastures...  it's the feeling when then, instead of recoiling, a man listens to me, considers what I say, and shows me respect by engaging me in a reasonable discussion about what I've said.

An incredible sensation of relief, of Stockholm syndrome-y love, oh, I thought you were going to cut off my pinky but this time you brought cake, oh how I love you! An immediate impulse to roll over, show my belly, wag my tail, and apologise with joy to show my gratitude. You took me seriously? You consider me a person when I am anything other than funny, sexy, or exciting? THANKYOU SO MUCH SOB.

WOW. How fucked up is all of that?? This attitude, while part of me, is no natural part of me - only a result of being told, in so many ways and so many times, that being a girl means I'm out of my mind, that my emotions control me, that my emotions are evil, that my love has a rotten core, that I should ride a surfboard, and take your hand and dash into alleys to kiss in the rain, but I should never feel conflicted, I should never get frustrated, and I should never change my mind, and I should never admit it if I do.... because that... would show my crazy. 

I remember joking with my (all male) friends about how different I was from other girls.... cause other girls are all crazy... I believe it, I buy it, I thought it of other girls and I thought it of myself, I didn't see the world through my own eyes, but rather the constructed eyes of every hook, line and sinker that told me that women are irrational.

The truth? Everyone is fucking irrational because we are all controlled by stymied evolutionary impulses and brain flashes and visual stimuli and hormones and we walk around in a world that is full of flashing lights and weird breezes and hot skin and pheromones and food smells.

I know shit ain't exactly easy for guys for various reasons, but let me tell you, this specific thing, this "GIRLS ARE CRAZY" thing, it really fucking sucks. It makes us crazy. It's like constantly being told you're angry - it makes you fucking confused and angry. It precludes compassion, it precludes understanding, trust, respect, the taking of responsibility, the learning from mistakes, it replaces joyful, dawning comprehension of the differences between us with a lazy tail-turning away from truth. It reduces romance to rulebooks, real human experience to just more 'drama'.

But feelings aren't drama and seeing inside someone else's messy, confused, strong and beautiful heart is not boring. It's the most amazing thing there is.

so don't buy it. don't call woman crazy. don't call anyone crazy. the label is not accurate or helpful... so just stop using it.

Laney

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Re: the ladies be crazy

aven frey

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Re: the ladies be crazy

agreed. That shit is damaging, manipulative and usually sexist or racist as hell. I also hate when men call women irrational, cause your man assessment of my cognitive functioning is oh so perfectly rational to begin with. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE-YYG8nrHI

viva

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Re: the ladies be crazy

woah, dave chapelle killin' it!

Aaronhalt

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Re: the ladies be crazy

God my gender depresses the fuck out of me.

viva

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Re: the ladies be crazy

Nooo Aaronhalt please don't be gender-depressed. This shit hurts everyone and its perpetrated by everyone. If we all felt responsible for the poor behaviour or nasty history of various members of various social groups we belong to, we'd all of us be in tears every morning before getting out the door.

Aaronhalt

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Re: the ladies be crazy

Nooo Aaronhalt please don't be gender-depressed. This shit hurts everyone and its perpetrated by everyone. If we all felt responsible for the poor behaviour or nasty history of various members of various social groups we belong to, we'd all of us be in tears every morning before getting out the door.

You know, I honestly disagree. It may hurt everyone, but at the end of the day, my gender gets hurt in a way that leaves us higher paid, unlikely to be the victims of sexual assault, and occupying most of the positions of extreme power in the world. And sexist attitudes like these are one of the tools we maintain power with.

That seems worth hating.

viva

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Re: the ladies be crazy

I don't know if anything is 'worth hating', and most especially anything so large and indistinct as a group of people. Regardless of whether we're looking up or down the ladder of privilege, I can't imagine that casting a net of hate is useful or effective - though compassionately, I can understand it. But I would say the same to a group of WOC looking at a group of white feminists and feeling hatred, or indeed any white person hating all white people, etc etc. I just don't think that emotional response is worthwhile - again, understandable, but not worth harnessing?

I don't know, I always find myself on this side of rejecting anger, rejecting blame throwing. I practice too much intentional communication to find this prickly behaviour effective. And there is a lot of this kind of sentiment in gender, sexuality and race politics, anger against people who try to understand and ask questions, anger against people who don't try to understand, anger against people who make mistakes, anger against self, against shitty people who aren't worth your powerful and passionate emotion... anger anger anger.

Maybe the adage is true and if you're not angry you're part of the problem. But I prefer to think that answers lie in the calm, cool world of compassionate, rational thought, as opposed to the hot, liminal space of fierce frustration and rejection.

Then again I myself rest in a very privileged space, or maybe I'm so socialized  into kitten-hood that I can't do much but meow? It's so hard to know what's right.

Aaronhalt

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Registered: 18-03-11

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Re: the ladies be crazy

It is perhaps more accurate to suggest that I hate the cultural role of masculinity. And I have very little patience with men who don't actively try to break with the cultural norms of masculinity and to forge identities outside of it.

viva

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Re: the ladies be crazy

Word.

viva

pretty pretty princess

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Re: the ladies be crazy

Actually, I think I prefer specifying the idea of 'patriarchy' as opposed to masculinity. 'Patriarchy' is a specific term we've applied  to the imbalance of cultural power in favor of men. Patriarchal values are something we can all toss out with the dirty bathwater as we hopefully move towards a more balanced and equal society. However throwing out *all* the culture norms of "masculinity" would be like throwing the baby out with all that said bathwater. Some of those cultural norms are nice - no?

And if they're not nice, if the cultural norms of masculinity are all to be done away with, is it the same for 'femininity'? I've worked so hard to accept many parts of myself that for better or worse I identify as feminine, deeply connected to the woman bits of me. And these ideas are informed in part by cultural norms. Is it wrong to think like that?

Please let me know if/when I've become tiresome. I am actually confused about these things and clearly a bit eager to discuss them but really don't wanna step on anyone's toes. So delicate. Bad dancer.

Aaronhalt

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Re: the ladies be crazy

Viva, chatting with you is never tiresome.

For me, the difference is that one is the culture of the oppressor and the other isn't. Which may seem a small distinction, but it's one I think matters. The culture of the oppressed has room for subversion that the culture of the oppressor doesn't and can't. There's a potential for radical thought and action within the culture of the oppressed that the structures of power necessarily lack.

But perhaps this is the flaming political radical in me speaking. I have an instinctive sympathy for burning it all down.

artist_charlotte_v

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Re: the ladies be crazy

Viva, the article you originally linked to was just republished on Daily Life and I'm so glad it's doing the rounds.

It makes me think of the time that I sat across from my therapist, absolutely distraught, pleading with her to tell me why I was "so crazy". She looked me straight in the eyes and told me, "You're not crazy, you are having a completely reasonable response to an emotionally distressing experience and the people around you are manipulative and unhealthy".

Absolute light bulb moment. It's not crazy to express 'unpleasant' emotions when in unpleasant situations, it's completely normal. Like the article suggests, people who call women crazy really mean "You are behaving in a way that I find inconvenient, and I want to you to stop." If people are unable to engage with me and address my concerns in a mature fashion I'm really not interested in their companionship. My boundaries are now firmer than ever and I'm not afraid to enforce them.