I was talking to a friend recently about the oft-repeated canard that feminists hate men. It gets spread around by the Republicans (and the Tories in her case) that we feminists are just grim-faced, no-fux, sexually-frustrated women (because in their world, only women can be feminists) people who hate the mens.
I have always, and I mean always, claimed that it’s the men who said that men are dogs who hate men. I mean, listening to these men talk about men, it’s really quite horrifying. “Men are dogs who can only think about sex. They have no sense of autonomy to say no to a pussy that is in front of them. They are just hapless victims to their raging libidios. Boys will be boys, you know. You can’t expect them to act like decent human beings.
Which, I mean. If this is truly the case, then they should not be allowed in polite society. One of the things that we should be able to expect (yeah, I know) in a civilezed society is that someone who acts in a way that is threatening or harmful to others should not be allowed.
I love men. Not all of them. Not even most of them, but there are plenty of men I love–or at least, like. In many ways, i get along better with men in general than with men. My interests tend to run more masculine (typically) than feminine, and I have had so many women question my womanhood.
I will say, it’s more circumspect than in the past. These days, no one is flat-out saying that you HAVE to think about fashion and makeup to be feminine, but there’s still covert implication that this ist the case. There was a time when I was in my thirties that I thought maybe it was finally going to be ok to be a woman who didn’t wear makeup, care about fashion, and discarded the bra. But, no. We’ve done a full double-down on you have to wear makeup, a bra, and care about clothing to be a woman.
It’s interesting how many women say they don’t care if other women don’t wear makeup, but for them it’s X, Y, and Z. I view that in the same way I feel about women who say it’s fine if other people are fat, but not them. And there’s nothing like a woman who’s maybe five pounds overweight going on and on about what a whale she is.
Let me be blunt. If you (general you) go on and on about how you feel so ugly or whatever without makeup on, I am going to make inferences about how you feel about makeup-less people in general. Which, fine. But it’s not gonig to make me feel warm and fuzzy.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. I like men. A lot. One of my best friends is a man. The other is a woman because I’m balanced like that. I expect men to be better than they are, which is to my detriment at times. Here’s the thing. I don’t see them as dogs who are driven by their instincts and cannot control themselves. I believe that they can be friends with women and not try to get into their pants. Am I giving them too much credit? I don’t think so!
When I was in college, I had many male friends. The guy I was dating at the time told me that all my male friends wanted to get into my pants. I accepted that at face value at the time, but looking back at it, I think he was wrong. And it wasn’t a very nice thing to say to me. It was pretty dismissive of me as a person for one and of the other guys in general.
