Jolane
OK - first off, if you want equal pay for equal work, you're a feminist. Deal with it.
I never entirely got the feminism vibe, at least not in the same way as other women seem to do, having never had the concept that male opinions were supposed to somehow matter more. I am pretty much indifferent as to people's plumbing or what they choose to do with it, unless they want me to be involved somehow. And I still don't get how the role fathers are meant to have in the raising of children is different from that of the mother. How fathers are useful in raising daughters especially eludes me, beyond just being in-house examples of maleness in captivity.
I am just old enough - or maybe my family was just lame enough - to remember being told that girls couldn't be scientists. I think the phrasing was that "Science is not an appropriate career choice for a young lady." To which I replied, "Good thing I'm not a fuckin' lady then, isn't it?" But this never translated into an expectation that I would somehow be judged on conformity to a societally-ordained gender role.
I'm not a girly girl, never saw the point. OK, I liked pink when I was seven and wore dresses by preference until about that age, but that's all long ago and far away. I certainly don't do the stuff that I have read women are supposed to do when interacting with men, like tilt my head charmingly or pretend I don't know things or let myself be interrupted multiple times without complaint.
A fellow at work reported me to Security because I forgot my swipe card one day and barged past him when he opened the door with his, telling him the head of the department would vouch for me but I really, really needed the toilet. And there was the time when the car my girlfriend and I were in got backed into by a van and the driver wanted us to apologise. I told him it was his fault. In the insurance report, he said that I had been "threatening and aggressive".
I think currently-assigned gender roles are limiting for everyone. In some cases they work fine, and I don't begrudge them to those who like them - but why impose them on everyone else? There are certainly biochemical/physiological differences between sexes, but the most and least "masculine" males (for example) have less in common with each other than they do with some females or intersex folks. It's a puzzlement.
Yes! I want to read more from Real Life Heartless Bitches
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