In yesterday’s post, I was talking about bras. Why? Because they are symbolic of societal norms that I consider pointless. I mentioned that so many women on the blog I was reading (and commenting) were so vehementy pro-bra, it surprised me. Not that they wore them or felt compelled to wear them, but that they were downright venemous about people with boobs not wearing them to work.
It caught me off-guard until I realized that it was the same thing that made women furious with me when I was in my twenties saying I was not going to have children. What’s more, I did not want them, and I was not apologetic about it. At all. Mind you, I wasn’t rude about it, either. I never brought it up myself because why would I? I didn’t think about it except when I was asked about it. Like, I wouldn’t mention I never thought about buying a drum set, either, because I don’t tihnk about drums at all.
I received a bunch of reactions to my decisoin–which I naively thought would only affect me. I was so young and so silly. How could I not know that the state of my uterus was public knowledge and that everyone had a say in the contents thereof? Am I being sarcastic? Fuck yeah! I took so much shit back then for not wanting to have children, and it took me at least a decade to unpack the layers.
I want to mention that these were all women. Men did not care if I wanted to have children–in fact, most of them wanted me NOT to want to have them (at least in my twenties). The biggest reaction by far was the condescension of, “Just wait until ______” (You get older, you hit thirty, you meet the right guy.)
That infuriated me because they presumed to know me better than I knew myself. Or they wanted to ram me into that female-shaped hole, my actual personality be damned. Also, even if I did change my mind at some point, tthat wasn’t where I was at the time I met them, so mentioning future me was futile.
Then there were women who were just curious about me saynig I did not want kids. What did I mean by that? How could I not want them? These women had a hint of envy in their voices, and I think they were questioning their own choices. I didn’t mind nudging them to seriously consider not having children.
Then, there were the women who got angry at me. Like, actually furious. They said I must think they were stupid/bad for having children/wanting them. No matter how much I said I didn’t think that of them (hell, I didn’t think about them at all, which probably would make them feel worse), they just got angrier and angrier.
I didn’t understand it until I thought about it for a while. Like, for a decade a while. For people who follow traditions and what they’re supposed to do, it’s a betrayal to them if there are people who don’t do the same thing. They viewed me as breaking the social contract to be what women are supposed to be.
In fact, my mother in her fifteen year crusade to get me pregnant once said something similar to me. After many minutes of her yet again maundering on and on about how I needed to have children, I snapped. I said I did not want to have children. She snapped back. She said, “It doesn’t matter what you want. It’s your duty as a woman to have children.”
Yes, she actually said that. To my face. With a straight (hah) face. That’s her philosophy in general, to be honest. A woman’s value is in serving her man and spawning as many children as possible. She told me once that she and my father had an argument/discussion about how many children to have. My mother came from a family of eight children, so she thought a good compromise was half that number. My father didn’t want any, I think, but he cared more about face than anything else. In his society, he would be looked down on if he did not have children. My belief is that he had two because that was the least he could have and still fit within Taiwanese society.
To tie this back to the bras I mentioned in the beginning, it’s the same theory. When someone unthinkingly follows tradition/societal norms, they get angry at people who don’t. In this case, women and AFAB people who forced themselves to wear bras every day and hating it would, of course, lash out at those of us who don’t follow the rules.
Oftentimes, the patriarchy counts on women and AFAB people to keep the sexism going. I mean, it’s often women who cluck their teeth over what other women are wearing, doing, thinking, saying. I also realized at a fairly young age (in my mid-twenties) that making women obsessed with weight and making them feel that being fat is the worst thing in the world is an awfully effective way to keep women down.
Sometimes, I think how much energy is wasted on diieting/thinking about how one looks/etc. It depresses me, though, so I try not to think of it.
Back to bras. I don’t give a shit if someone wants to wear a bra; I just wished the understanding went both ways. I don’t see the big deal if I don’t wear one. If I worked in an office, I would make sure my nips were covered. That’s really all anyone can ask of me. I mean, yes, an office could mandate that female-appearing women wear bras (that was the gist of the post I was commenting on), but I can always say no.
I really did not expect that–
Huh. Ok. I chought I finished this, but apparently I didn’t. I was going to say that I did not expect to get so much pushback for my non-bra-wearing stance. It just goes to show that some norms are so ingrained in society, even the mildest step away from them causes some people to lose their minds.