Experiences With Gender
I could talk for hours about my own experiences with gendered expectations or treatment from the men in my life, but I hesitate. I live in constant fear of the reactions of the men around me. Are they going to feel targeted and alienated? How is that supposed to help me in explaining to them an experience they can’t begin to understand, but must aid in remedying? But doesn’t silencing myself in fear of negative reaction further perpetuate gender norms? How is subjecting myself to gender norms productive in any way? I fear that we, as women, are not fighting an uphill battle, but an impossible one. But surely that doesn't mean we should just give up and accept the passive docility we’ve been conditioned to accept as our role in this world. I just don’t know how to answer these questions. How can we find an absolute solution for the repercussions of existing as a woman?
The only answer I have to this question is that there’s not an obvious solution. Because like any issue dealing with people, there are complexities. I wish the issue of patriarchal violence could be reduced to the actions of far detached bad people who you hear about on the news and in true crime podcasts, but then I remember the people I’ve known more personally. Like the man who sat next to me on the airplane the first time I ever flew alone, (the man who told me he was visiting his grandkids), who is now the reason I'm afraid of flying at all. And how my freshman year boyfriend who never seemed to learn the word “no” also likes the color green, and has a dog named Marley. Or why I no longer see my old therapist. I remember the copies of children’s books in his office. I grew up believing in fairytales, and even if the world is less magical than it seems, Disney got one thing right: Princes can also be horrible beasts.