Oh, how I could have used this about 10 years ago, when I was still in the thick of my divorce and drowning in bills and kids and WTF. Now I'm not drowning anymore. I don't put up with men's bullshit (in my personal life, anyway). I have ascended again (barely) into the middle class and just maintaining that reality while also having any kind of creative focus takes everything.
So the fucks are few and far between and I don't feel bad about it. Instead, I feel largely outside of society's expectations of women because I don't have the energy for them (Not trying to get married again helps with that, too.). So, I'll simply say, Welcome to the party, ladies. It's more work than I'd like, but it's better than whatever that shit was before.
Hear hear. As an adult, I watched my mom be miserable most of the time in her marriage. Around the time she might have had the inclination to get a divorce, finally, my father's health began to falter, and she, in good conscience, couldn't leave. But the morning he died, I was there with her and one of my brothers. (We had been there, awake, all night, waiting.) My brother cried. I didn't. She didn't. My father donated his body to science (my mom's suggestion, as that's what she's going to do, and he could never make up his mind about what he wanted), so we waited for the representative from the medical school to arrive. When it was time to go, she put her hand on his chest and said, "Goodbye, Fred." And we left. That was it. It was so simple and yet so striking to see a woman who had spent nearly 57 years of her life with this other person experience, upon his death, relief.
She's never cried over his death.
Men, seems you might want to participate in your marriages in such ways that your wives' primary emotion upon your death isn't *relief.
Later: I'll add that I appreciate that men would rather not [ insert whatever thing ]. No shit, dude. I would rather not do the dishes, run the errands, do the laundry, cut the grass, book the appointments, cook the meals, etc. But most of us do not live, nor have our ancestors ever lived, in the age of servants. I used to tell my mom that she and my father should trade lives for a week. There is *no way* he would have been able to do all that she did. He took so much for granted. From the moment he woke up, everything he needed was available to him because of her. He wakes up in his bed. He's in their home. Did he make sure the mortgage payment got paid every month? Nope, that was her. Did he pay the electric bill every month? Nope. The water bill? Nope. Did he buy the mattress and all the bedding? Nope. Did he buy his underwear? OK, maybe that. Did he buy his toothbrush, the toothpaste, the shaving cream, the razor? Nope, nope, nope, and nope. Did he buy the towel hanging by the sink? Did he wash it and dry it and hang it there?
You get the point. She did almost everything. He cut the grass. Sometimes he emptied the garbage. A guy at their house for dinner once commented on my father doing the grilling. Nope, Mom did that, too. He didn't even do most of the "guy" stuff. That fell to my eldest brother.
After watching nauseating footage of an old white male MAGA legislator arguing that pregnant children who had been raped must be forced to carry their pregnancies to term because an exception for them would be exploited by “consensual (?!?!)” teens, I am totally rooting for the women AND the orcas. Be free. Be wild. I’m a guy and yes, we’re the problem. Sink the boat.
It's the summer of no more negotiations! You know who never negotiates? The husband. So forget negotiating with him, but also, no more negotiating with myself. Why do I spend so much time wondering if or how I can do something? That shit is exhausting. Just gonna do it. Probably mess it up, and have a great time doing it.
I've got a friend in an apparently happy marriage. They both work FT and have 2 kids. Every time I ask her about getting together she says she's got to check with spouse. Fair! But half the time she comes back and says he's already got plans. So apparently it's fine for him to make plans without consulting her, but she must check to make sure he can do child care before she makes plans? Like WTF?
I don't really have a hard time with her. I am more infuriated on her behalf because I don't think it's ever occurred to her that it could be different.
Thu, I'm right here with you on this. This year is my year to do what I want. I'm presently married but have realized I'm a ghost in my own life and my world has gotten so small because my dude doesn't want to. He just doesn't want to, so we don't. I'm over that ish.
Here, here - rooting for you to have the BEST time doing it!
I could cry right now reading this. I am so so tired. My divorce was final eight years ago after 23 years of marriage and now I find myself at the end of another relationship- where I again feel bad about not being happy in a relationship I think should end. The amount of work that I need to do to stop feeling guilty about wanting to put my own needs ahead of other's is sometimes as sad as the guilty feelings. UGH. At least I recognize it? I have started to voice my needs-- I just need to start cutting out the apologies about my needs when I voice them. Writing like this gives me strength and sanity to do it. THANK YOU.
My ex-husband spends a lot of time at my house, particularly because he loves the dog and I am the stable one. He’s a good guy, but he still has a lot of work to do on himself. We will never live together again, and we’re not in a sexual relationship, and he has had a rough relationship with alcohol. Anyway, two days ago he was here - he cooks and I do not. I am the cleaner upper. The stove is a pain in the ass to clean up - it has the heavy wrought iron things that go over the gas burners. Anyway, I say, “hey, I would appreciate it if you would clean the stove before you leave today.” He was, as he always is, stressed about all the things he has going on, and he threw back at me, “You don’t even have a job, why are you asking me to do that?” I didn’t respond in kind, I just said, “That was mean.” So in a few minutes, he comes out to the porch and he wants to know why I asked him to do that. And I said, “You know what? I don’t need a reason to ask you to do something for me. I just don’t. You can say no, but it’s 100% okay for me to ask.” That was a new one for both of us. I was proud of me for saying so. You don’t have to have a reason to ask for something. You don’t have to be so wrung out that you are on death’s door or have no energy left to ask for ANYTHING. Yes, we absolutely shouldn’t HAVE to ask, but also, if we don’t start asking, they’ll never see it. Expecting the other person to be a mind reader is one of the hardest things to unlearn, particularly when you grow up in an abusive environment where you’re walking on eggshells. (Hi! That’s me!). You learn not to ask for things because you never know how they’ll be reacted to, but we’re adults now, and it’s okay to have needs and wants.
Yes! I love your response, "I don't need a reason to ask..." so much energy is wasted in crafting questions/responses that won't spur an argument or hurt feelings that need soothing. Thank you for this!
Another component of the having to ask is the idea that chores or things we ask are personal favors to us. I lost my shit on my husband a few weeks ago when he made a comment that some chore was something that he was doing "for me." "NO," I said. "Don't you dare. Things you do around here are necessary contributions to our shared home and life, not personal favors for me, because that insinuates that it should fall on me as a default and that is bullshit." He genuinely apologized and took it to heart and that is why we are still married.
I'm off topic here, but you've expressed the weight I feel like I've been carrying around. I work from home, so I don't have a lot of "dressy" clothes. I have a pair of good black pants for work conferences, but I've worn them more for funerals than anything else lately. I'm 56 and I have funeral pants. For my best friend's husband. For another old friend. For a friend who lost a son too young.
Is this the life we're all supposed to cling to and cherish? Fuck that. I'm going to do what I want.
Same here. I'm 55 and have a funeral dress. It might have managed to be put to other uses but Covid happened. I wore it at my husband's funeral last year and it will never not be a funeral dress now.
A year later I'm out of fucks to give about what people think of me and am spending my spare time fostering kittens.
Yes!!! to fostering kitten - the fast track to joy! Especially if they don't quit on you (shout out to Trashcan Jones fosters on IG and FB). And even if they do, you loved them and they knew it.
I love this SO MUCH, and it’s incredibly timely. I just came out of the fight of my life, a three-year slog through legal hell against a bad lawyer (any lawyer will tell you, it’s better to be attacked by good lawyers than bad ones) and I hadn’t caught my breath before people started asking me when I’m gonna start law school. I’m not against the idea, I’ve been told my whole life that I missed my calling, but right now the couch is calling and I need to rest before I decide which fights to engage in- there are too many as it is. And God knows I don’t want student loans again…why can’t we rest and celebrate that?????? Why do we celebrate work with more work??? I don’t want to be on a mission!
I (literally last Sunday) finished my master’s degree, and I am considering whether I want to pursue a doctorate, and if so, in what… and then I’m like, “You JUST finished three years of this. Maybe take a break!?!?!” So, I’m taking this week off. I STILL don’t have a job (after 10 months) but I have no effort to put in right now. REST AND CELEBRATE! You got through the mess!!! WOOOOOOO!!!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! Only so the doctorate if someone else pays for it- all my friends who took out loans for PhDs have big time regrets.
I feel like I should have the law degree already!!!!! Maybe something like a master’s in one specific area of law would suffice, I don’t want to go back to school while my kids are still at home…
I’m single and childfree and it was still a labor. I honestly don’t know how moms who work ever get advanced degrees, because it takes A LOT. I have the deepest respect for moms who decide to pursue higher education.
And I agree on the PhD - someone else will pay for it. My masters classes were $1350 a class. I managed to pay for that without taking out a loan, but it was tight. Good luck with whatever you decide!
Lyz, I am fascinated with the idea of 50/50 custody within a marriage--like, is there a way of doing this fairly or are we all hopelessly fucked by internalized (and externalized) patriarchal systems--I used to envy my divorced friends that week-on/week-off parenting schedule. I was wondering if you might be able to put me in touch with the woman who said she was going to try it . . . or if you know anyone else who has.
It hasn't worked for me, personally. My husband's thinly-veiled rage is the third member of our marriage. (I don't intend to be married for very much longer...) Perhaps it could work for you, if your partner is actually willing to do 50% of the work, and if he doesn't decide to also make your life hell as "payment" for his "suffering."
I call it “boy math”- they look at their to-do list and think it should be cut in half because they have a partner. They never look at their partner’s to-do list or calculate the sum total of the work to be done, they just perform one act of simple division that supports and encourages their rage.
People don't realize that (a) having two people in a household is a lot more work than one and (b) it can be more work to do someone else's bits than one's own, esp. the adulting/emotional labor aspects.
Ugh, Laura, I'm sorry. I'll never forget what I read once about male rage, which was that women are supposed to be the emotional ones, but only if you don't count anger as an emotion! We are JUST about to have an empty nest here, so it's too late for me, but I'm interested in the idea of 50/50 custody within a pretty good marriage. My husband did at least half the work, but I definitely had trouble withdrawing from the family management part of the job when I wasn't on duty.
If I was home it was 100% me with the kids. Only way I could ever get him to do childcare was to leave the house. I used to take myself to movies or my parents house and sleep.
In the words of Leonard Cohen (hate to bring a man into this space, but I like the quote), "We are all broken. That's where the light gets in." Here's to the light forever shining in all women, not only this summer, but from here on out. I'm in the process of getting divorced, and I've never felt lighter or more at peace in my own body, home, and spirit.
Please explain why a large contingent of women are huge Trump supporters. I’m not being (entirely) snarky here. It astounds me that any woman would embrace the MAGA agenda, and yet here we are. If Trump’s support didn’t include so many Moms Fer Lib’r’ty types, even with the sour male vote, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
It is the nature of any oppressive system (in this case, patriarchy) that there will be those among the oppressed who will stake their lives on their ability to maintain proximity to power, forgetting that the system will come for them eventually regardless because they don't actually hold the power. They just stand next to it.
I think you are correct in that this explains some part of the phenomenon (maybe even the largest part), but I'm not convinced what you describe explains all of it.
with all due respect, please explain why you're not doing your own research on this? there's a ton of thoughtful writing on conservative beliefs and gender.
Without being pointlessly snarky, do you mean ‘do my own research’ on the research throne in the little room the way the anti-vaxer/COVID skeptics do, or do you mean reading and thinking of the other kind?
If the the latter, then that kind I do.
Will it help if I say ‘man bad’? Will it help if I say ‘patriarchy bad’? Will it help if I say ‘man bad’ and ‘patriarchy bad’, yes, but withal, it is a _human problem_ we face?
at the risk of engaging in the very dynamic I was attempting to point out, there is a documented and much discussed phenomenon of men coming into spaces created by and about women, wherein said men frequently will ask to have things explain to them or researched for them. in this case, coming to a space and saying "hey, people who share this gender identity, explain why other people who have the same gender identity are doing x y or z" is not ideal behavior because a), it assumes that all people from a given group can speak for one another -both in the sense of seemingly having special insight, and in the sense of having a responsibility for those other group members' actions- which is not true AND b) centers the interests or needs of the person coming into the space. my comment to you was an explicit invitation to you to do your own research instead of asking women to explain women to you.
it won't let me edit, but I also want to add that there is work that is involved in explaining things to people. so when you ask for people to explain things for you or document things for you or research things for you, you are asking them to do work. frequently as is the theme of this very newsletter, men expect women to do work for them.
Oh, how I could have used this about 10 years ago, when I was still in the thick of my divorce and drowning in bills and kids and WTF. Now I'm not drowning anymore. I don't put up with men's bullshit (in my personal life, anyway). I have ascended again (barely) into the middle class and just maintaining that reality while also having any kind of creative focus takes everything.
So the fucks are few and far between and I don't feel bad about it. Instead, I feel largely outside of society's expectations of women because I don't have the energy for them (Not trying to get married again helps with that, too.). So, I'll simply say, Welcome to the party, ladies. It's more work than I'd like, but it's better than whatever that shit was before.
Hear hear. As an adult, I watched my mom be miserable most of the time in her marriage. Around the time she might have had the inclination to get a divorce, finally, my father's health began to falter, and she, in good conscience, couldn't leave. But the morning he died, I was there with her and one of my brothers. (We had been there, awake, all night, waiting.) My brother cried. I didn't. She didn't. My father donated his body to science (my mom's suggestion, as that's what she's going to do, and he could never make up his mind about what he wanted), so we waited for the representative from the medical school to arrive. When it was time to go, she put her hand on his chest and said, "Goodbye, Fred." And we left. That was it. It was so simple and yet so striking to see a woman who had spent nearly 57 years of her life with this other person experience, upon his death, relief.
She's never cried over his death.
Men, seems you might want to participate in your marriages in such ways that your wives' primary emotion upon your death isn't *relief.
Later: I'll add that I appreciate that men would rather not [ insert whatever thing ]. No shit, dude. I would rather not do the dishes, run the errands, do the laundry, cut the grass, book the appointments, cook the meals, etc. But most of us do not live, nor have our ancestors ever lived, in the age of servants. I used to tell my mom that she and my father should trade lives for a week. There is *no way* he would have been able to do all that she did. He took so much for granted. From the moment he woke up, everything he needed was available to him because of her. He wakes up in his bed. He's in their home. Did he make sure the mortgage payment got paid every month? Nope, that was her. Did he pay the electric bill every month? Nope. The water bill? Nope. Did he buy the mattress and all the bedding? Nope. Did he buy his underwear? OK, maybe that. Did he buy his toothbrush, the toothpaste, the shaving cream, the razor? Nope, nope, nope, and nope. Did he buy the towel hanging by the sink? Did he wash it and dry it and hang it there?
You get the point. She did almost everything. He cut the grass. Sometimes he emptied the garbage. A guy at their house for dinner once commented on my father doing the grilling. Nope, Mom did that, too. He didn't even do most of the "guy" stuff. That fell to my eldest brother.
THAT LAST LINE IS EVERYTHING ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
After watching nauseating footage of an old white male MAGA legislator arguing that pregnant children who had been raped must be forced to carry their pregnancies to term because an exception for them would be exploited by “consensual (?!?!)” teens, I am totally rooting for the women AND the orcas. Be free. Be wild. I’m a guy and yes, we’re the problem. Sink the boat.
Sink. The. Boat.
I'm a Cis her male and I am fuck these guys.
It's the summer of no more negotiations! You know who never negotiates? The husband. So forget negotiating with him, but also, no more negotiating with myself. Why do I spend so much time wondering if or how I can do something? That shit is exhausting. Just gonna do it. Probably mess it up, and have a great time doing it.
I've got a friend in an apparently happy marriage. They both work FT and have 2 kids. Every time I ask her about getting together she says she's got to check with spouse. Fair! But half the time she comes back and says he's already got plans. So apparently it's fine for him to make plans without consulting her, but she must check to make sure he can do child care before she makes plans? Like WTF?
Yikes. I'd have a hard time with this friend too.
I don't really have a hard time with her. I am more infuriated on her behalf because I don't think it's ever occurred to her that it could be different.
Thu, I'm right here with you on this. This year is my year to do what I want. I'm presently married but have realized I'm a ghost in my own life and my world has gotten so small because my dude doesn't want to. He just doesn't want to, so we don't. I'm over that ish.
Here, here - rooting for you to have the BEST time doing it!
I’m rooting for YOU too! Let’s be over it together.
I could cry right now reading this. I am so so tired. My divorce was final eight years ago after 23 years of marriage and now I find myself at the end of another relationship- where I again feel bad about not being happy in a relationship I think should end. The amount of work that I need to do to stop feeling guilty about wanting to put my own needs ahead of other's is sometimes as sad as the guilty feelings. UGH. At least I recognize it? I have started to voice my needs-- I just need to start cutting out the apologies about my needs when I voice them. Writing like this gives me strength and sanity to do it. THANK YOU.
My ex-husband spends a lot of time at my house, particularly because he loves the dog and I am the stable one. He’s a good guy, but he still has a lot of work to do on himself. We will never live together again, and we’re not in a sexual relationship, and he has had a rough relationship with alcohol. Anyway, two days ago he was here - he cooks and I do not. I am the cleaner upper. The stove is a pain in the ass to clean up - it has the heavy wrought iron things that go over the gas burners. Anyway, I say, “hey, I would appreciate it if you would clean the stove before you leave today.” He was, as he always is, stressed about all the things he has going on, and he threw back at me, “You don’t even have a job, why are you asking me to do that?” I didn’t respond in kind, I just said, “That was mean.” So in a few minutes, he comes out to the porch and he wants to know why I asked him to do that. And I said, “You know what? I don’t need a reason to ask you to do something for me. I just don’t. You can say no, but it’s 100% okay for me to ask.” That was a new one for both of us. I was proud of me for saying so. You don’t have to have a reason to ask for something. You don’t have to be so wrung out that you are on death’s door or have no energy left to ask for ANYTHING. Yes, we absolutely shouldn’t HAVE to ask, but also, if we don’t start asking, they’ll never see it. Expecting the other person to be a mind reader is one of the hardest things to unlearn, particularly when you grow up in an abusive environment where you’re walking on eggshells. (Hi! That’s me!). You learn not to ask for things because you never know how they’ll be reacted to, but we’re adults now, and it’s okay to have needs and wants.
Yes! I love your response, "I don't need a reason to ask..." so much energy is wasted in crafting questions/responses that won't spur an argument or hurt feelings that need soothing. Thank you for this!
YOUR RESPONSE TO HIM IS AMAZING I AM AWESTRUCK
Another component of the having to ask is the idea that chores or things we ask are personal favors to us. I lost my shit on my husband a few weeks ago when he made a comment that some chore was something that he was doing "for me." "NO," I said. "Don't you dare. Things you do around here are necessary contributions to our shared home and life, not personal favors for me, because that insinuates that it should fall on me as a default and that is bullshit." He genuinely apologized and took it to heart and that is why we are still married.
Wooooo! Well done.
Really needed to read this response. Thank you. And GOOD FOR YOU!
Burn it all the eff down.
I'm off topic here, but you've expressed the weight I feel like I've been carrying around. I work from home, so I don't have a lot of "dressy" clothes. I have a pair of good black pants for work conferences, but I've worn them more for funerals than anything else lately. I'm 56 and I have funeral pants. For my best friend's husband. For another old friend. For a friend who lost a son too young.
Is this the life we're all supposed to cling to and cherish? Fuck that. I'm going to do what I want.
Same here. I'm 55 and have a funeral dress. It might have managed to be put to other uses but Covid happened. I wore it at my husband's funeral last year and it will never not be a funeral dress now.
A year later I'm out of fucks to give about what people think of me and am spending my spare time fostering kittens.
Yes!!! to fostering kitten - the fast track to joy! Especially if they don't quit on you (shout out to Trashcan Jones fosters on IG and FB). And even if they do, you loved them and they knew it.
Sorry, got a little dark there...
I love this SO MUCH, and it’s incredibly timely. I just came out of the fight of my life, a three-year slog through legal hell against a bad lawyer (any lawyer will tell you, it’s better to be attacked by good lawyers than bad ones) and I hadn’t caught my breath before people started asking me when I’m gonna start law school. I’m not against the idea, I’ve been told my whole life that I missed my calling, but right now the couch is calling and I need to rest before I decide which fights to engage in- there are too many as it is. And God knows I don’t want student loans again…why can’t we rest and celebrate that?????? Why do we celebrate work with more work??? I don’t want to be on a mission!
I (literally last Sunday) finished my master’s degree, and I am considering whether I want to pursue a doctorate, and if so, in what… and then I’m like, “You JUST finished three years of this. Maybe take a break!?!?!” So, I’m taking this week off. I STILL don’t have a job (after 10 months) but I have no effort to put in right now. REST AND CELEBRATE! You got through the mess!!! WOOOOOOO!!!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!! Only so the doctorate if someone else pays for it- all my friends who took out loans for PhDs have big time regrets.
I feel like I should have the law degree already!!!!! Maybe something like a master’s in one specific area of law would suffice, I don’t want to go back to school while my kids are still at home…
I’m single and childfree and it was still a labor. I honestly don’t know how moms who work ever get advanced degrees, because it takes A LOT. I have the deepest respect for moms who decide to pursue higher education.
And I agree on the PhD - someone else will pay for it. My masters classes were $1350 a class. I managed to pay for that without taking out a loan, but it was tight. Good luck with whatever you decide!
I didn't have bog witch in the workplan but slotting it in.
Yesssss Bog witch resonates. Bringing all of our talents and finely honed skills to benefit ourselves and our sisters. Let’s goooooooo!
SAME!
Bog witch is sounding more appealing all the time!
Lyz, I am fascinated with the idea of 50/50 custody within a marriage--like, is there a way of doing this fairly or are we all hopelessly fucked by internalized (and externalized) patriarchal systems--I used to envy my divorced friends that week-on/week-off parenting schedule. I was wondering if you might be able to put me in touch with the woman who said she was going to try it . . . or if you know anyone else who has.
It hasn't worked for me, personally. My husband's thinly-veiled rage is the third member of our marriage. (I don't intend to be married for very much longer...) Perhaps it could work for you, if your partner is actually willing to do 50% of the work, and if he doesn't decide to also make your life hell as "payment" for his "suffering."
I call it “boy math”- they look at their to-do list and think it should be cut in half because they have a partner. They never look at their partner’s to-do list or calculate the sum total of the work to be done, they just perform one act of simple division that supports and encourages their rage.
People don't realize that (a) having two people in a household is a lot more work than one and (b) it can be more work to do someone else's bits than one's own, esp. the adulting/emotional labor aspects.
YEP. Boymath doesn’t care about “soft stuff” like emotional labor. It cares only about HARD NUMMERS and QUANT! 🤣
and it's not even QUANT LOL!!
Ugh, Laura, I'm sorry. I'll never forget what I read once about male rage, which was that women are supposed to be the emotional ones, but only if you don't count anger as an emotion! We are JUST about to have an empty nest here, so it's too late for me, but I'm interested in the idea of 50/50 custody within a pretty good marriage. My husband did at least half the work, but I definitely had trouble withdrawing from the family management part of the job when I wasn't on duty.
THIS.
If I was home it was 100% me with the kids. Only way I could ever get him to do childcare was to leave the house. I used to take myself to movies or my parents house and sleep.
Put this on a post it note on your bathroom mirror:
If you want freedom,
Stop asking for permission.
Go forth and be YOU.
Love to all you rebels and wild women.
In the words of Leonard Cohen (hate to bring a man into this space, but I like the quote), "We are all broken. That's where the light gets in." Here's to the light forever shining in all women, not only this summer, but from here on out. I'm in the process of getting divorced, and I've never felt lighter or more at peace in my own body, home, and spirit.
Thank you so much for this! Overwhelmed by other's expectations today. Needed a power manifesto.
I read the orca news yesterday and thought of you! Go whales!
I recently realized that the reason my hands keep shaking is not just anxiety, it is from suppressed rage at my soon to be ex-husband.
My face hurts all the time from gritting my teeth. I’m on vacation, alone, in Europe, and just realized my face doesn’t hurt!
Please explain why a large contingent of women are huge Trump supporters. I’m not being (entirely) snarky here. It astounds me that any woman would embrace the MAGA agenda, and yet here we are. If Trump’s support didn’t include so many Moms Fer Lib’r’ty types, even with the sour male vote, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
It is the nature of any oppressive system (in this case, patriarchy) that there will be those among the oppressed who will stake their lives on their ability to maintain proximity to power, forgetting that the system will come for them eventually regardless because they don't actually hold the power. They just stand next to it.
I think you are correct in that this explains some part of the phenomenon (maybe even the largest part), but I'm not convinced what you describe explains all of it.
with all due respect, please explain why you're not doing your own research on this? there's a ton of thoughtful writing on conservative beliefs and gender.
Without being pointlessly snarky, do you mean ‘do my own research’ on the research throne in the little room the way the anti-vaxer/COVID skeptics do, or do you mean reading and thinking of the other kind?
If the the latter, then that kind I do.
Will it help if I say ‘man bad’? Will it help if I say ‘patriarchy bad’? Will it help if I say ‘man bad’ and ‘patriarchy bad’, yes, but withal, it is a _human problem_ we face?
at the risk of engaging in the very dynamic I was attempting to point out, there is a documented and much discussed phenomenon of men coming into spaces created by and about women, wherein said men frequently will ask to have things explain to them or researched for them. in this case, coming to a space and saying "hey, people who share this gender identity, explain why other people who have the same gender identity are doing x y or z" is not ideal behavior because a), it assumes that all people from a given group can speak for one another -both in the sense of seemingly having special insight, and in the sense of having a responsibility for those other group members' actions- which is not true AND b) centers the interests or needs of the person coming into the space. my comment to you was an explicit invitation to you to do your own research instead of asking women to explain women to you.
it won't let me edit, but I also want to add that there is work that is involved in explaining things to people. so when you ask for people to explain things for you or document things for you or research things for you, you are asking them to do work. frequently as is the theme of this very newsletter, men expect women to do work for them.
I wonder the same thing.
My plan exactly.