So yeah, this was a thing that happened on twitter today and kind of ate my afternoon. Mostly because I saw someone saying incredibly stupid shit about women/feminism to my older brother and like any good little sister, I rolled up my sleeves and waded in. And then it just kind of went down this strange rabbit hole that involves communism and… I just can’t even describe it. It’s sure a thing. Well, I guess at least this gave me a chance to do some real sibling bonding with my brother, as we both marveled again and again at wow would you just get a load of this fuckin’ guy.
I haven’t had that much to say specifically in the wake of the hate crime that went down in Isla Vista yesterday. I haven’t really had anything beyond mute horror, and anger, and sickened disbelief. I’ve been watching the #YesAllWomen tag on twitter but haven’t had anything really to contribute because I’ve lead a really charmed life, to be honest. I’ve been lucky.
And then you find yourself arguing with some random dude on Twitter who is offended–offended!–that everyone is talking about misogyny when there were guys murdered to and that’s totally misandry and therefore… something. (Never mind that functionally, those men were also murdered because of misogyny; if the murderer hadn’t gone on his little hate crime spree they would all still be alive.) And I’m a penis-envying wanna-be man for disagreeing with him.
But I finally do have something to add to #YesAllWomen, because this has reminded me of the every day bullshit I do get exposed to, and I don’t even notice it any more because when you’re swimming in water, how do you know if you’re wet?
#YesAllWomen get told our experiences are invalid, irrational, or not good enough because we’re women.
#YesAllWomen get told that every time something terrible happens to women, we should stop acting like it’s a problem because it happens to men too.
#YesAllWomen get told that our anger is invalid because we don’t start off by praising the “good men” involved first.
#YesAllWoman get told that we’re being oversensitive or we just don’t understand what people mean when yes, we fucking understand harassment when it’s happening to us.
#YesAllWomen get dismissed because we are “snotty bitches” who “hate men” and have “penis envy” and that’s a good enough reason to not listen to us.
#YesAllWomen know that we’re lucky if this is all the bullshit we ever get hit with because it gets so, so very worse from here.