I don’t have a car. I hate driving and it’s probably safer for everyone on the road; I’m incapable of both getting the car to move in a straight line and also paying attention to a million different things going on at once around me. As a consequence, if any place I want to go is within a few miles, I’ll walk. I get rides from people or take the bus.

For some reason the past few years I’ve been victim to an explosion of random harassment on the street. No one ever used to bother me until about three years ago, when all of the sudden I was suddenly subject to unwanted attention by guys trying to intimidate me into going out with them, or men shouting at me or honking on the street. I’m not a person who deals well with this. I freeze up. I want to crawl into a hole in the sidewalk somewhere and just die. It’s the most I can do to simply ignore it and not give them the satisfaction of a response; forget confronting anyone, yelling “fuck you” or flipping them off — I wish to God I could. My reflexes aren’t that fast and it upsets me too much to immediately react. And maybe I’m a little afraid to. I think my attitude is enough to keep people from confronting me, generally (apparently I scare and intimidate people), but apart from that, I’m a very small person. I feel tiny, and I’m very aware, sometimes, how vulnerable that makes me.

Anyway, I hadn’t had any problems since August or September, so I suppose I assumed that it had somehow stopped. But I think the assholes were just waiting until spring to emerge.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been honked at many times and even had one idiot stop in the middle of the street (residential neighborhood, so not a lot of traffic) and slooowly cruise by, making sounds which I honestly thought at first were a pigeon or something. (I swear this is true. Sexy, huh? He sure thought so. Dumbass.) He finally drove away when I refused to acknowledge him at all and people behind him got pissed off and started honking. But none of this has ever really bothered me. Sure, I didn’t like it, but I can forget it and keep going about my day.

Today, while walking to work, I had some guys zoom by and scream at me. Some unintelligible but almost certainly obscene statement that ended with the word “bitch”. (At first it really bothered me that I couldn’t make out what they’d said. But I’m pretty sure I’m better off not knowing.) I have no idea what I did to deserve being called names. Maybe they’d tried to get my attention and I didn’t notice. Or maybe they were just pathetic scum with nothing better to do with their day than assault random people. Scratch that — women. People don’t do this to men. And that is an act of violence. It is a violation. To not feel safe in your own neighborhood, half a block away from, of all things, an elementary school, with kindergartners running around and everything.

That did upset me. I got to work and wanted to cry. It took me most of the day to even begin to forget about it. Being called a bitch on the street ruined my day.
Tell me that’s a compliment. Just try to tell me I should appreciate that they found me an attractive target for their aggression. I fucking dare you.

It’s not any different at all from when men cat-call or whistle or say other things which may not involve such rude language or names. It’s the same sentiment, it’s just that these guys didn’t feel the need to hide their utter contempt for women. It’s not a compliment. It’s not about being found attractive. It’s about men asserting their power over women — and except on the most superficial level, it’s not even sexual. It’s violent. It’s unbridled hate for simply being born what I am. An object to be despised except when I can be used.

This reminded me of an old post by Echidne on misogynists and how feminism brings them out of the woodwork. Basically this post argues that misogynists are less common than we think, it’s simply that outspoken feminist bloggers attract more trolls and give us an inflated sense of how many men really, truly hate us.

And while I think it’s a good post, and it has a point, I think it’s absolutely not true. I think misogynists are pretty fucking common. I think more men totally despise women more than we ever want to admit. Because I’m not doing anything to attract unwarranted attention when I walk on the street. I’m not spouting my politics, I’m not dressing or acting in any way which could reveal that I am a feminist or the uppity broad I am. If anything, I look average, I look feminine, and I’m the farthest thing in most people’s mind from a queer feminist stereotype. And yet I encounter this shit just as much, sometimes more, in daily life, in apolitical contexts, than I do online.

Misogyny is totally ubiquitous. It’s all-pervading. It’s everywhere, all the time, and I, at least, am being constantly bombarded with it. What makes this worse is that this behavior is perceived as normal. I don’t know what other conclusion I’m supposed to come to except that the majority of men hate women, otherwise, this wouldn’t happen constantly, and it certainly wouldn’t be seen as okay.

Yeah, I know, it could be worse. This place is better than some.

But it’s still bad.

People who ask this question obviously don’t understand what is meant by the term “sexual objectification”. No, I don’t want to be objectified, not ever. Not by random people on the street, not by an intimate partner.

“Why?”

By definition, what is an object? An object is something inert to be manipulated by others. An object exists only for the purposes it was made and can only passively fulfil that purpose through its use by an active party. A grammatical object is the part of a sentence which indicates what is being manipulated by the subject; linguistically, an object has things done to it but does nothing on its own.

In more concrete terms, what are objects? Objects are items that exist outside of ourselves which we put to specific uses. A banana is an object. It’s a plant which has been domesticated so that its only purpose is to be consumed by human beings. The plant can no longer reproduce without human intervention, so its natural biological purpose has been subverted and it no longer has a real function outside of the uses humans design for it. When we plant grass in our yards to look nice, this is an object. The only real purpose of grass is to grow and spread, but we add cultural baggage, assumptions about class and aesthetics which we attach not only to our lawns but to their color and health, their maintanance, their growth. A car is an object; it is for transportation. A stove is an object; it is for cooking. Food is an object; it is to be cooked, it is to be eaten. A baseball is an object; it is to be thrown within the specific context of certain games.

Objects are things.

A woman is not an object.

Let me ammend that: people are not objects.

Women do not exist solely to be sexually manipulated, used, abused. When a woman is objectified she is made into a passive thing — she is not an individual with thoughts and ideas, with ambitions and goals and principles. She is simply something to be used for the pleasure of the one who objectifies her. And do things have feelings? Does anyone care what an object thinks or wants? In a very real way, objectification is dehumanization. Dehumanizing a subject, making them into an object, allows for their feelings and thoughts to be completely disregarded. Does consent matter when dealing with a thing rather than a person? Does anything matter but the pleasure and whims of the user, the abuser?

Other people are made into objects, too. It’s not just women who are made into objects in order to fulfil the fantasties of others; parents make their children into objects, too, assuming that the child’s only purpose is to live up to their expectations, to do as the parents would like the child to do. Politicians and advertizers make people into objects: we are a passive audience for them to manipulate, to do what they want us to do for their benefit and not for our own — we are a means to an end and we are not human when we do this. We are objects to be used and manipulated and then discarded when our usefulness is through.

So not all objectification is sexual. None of it is good, beneficial, or in any way desirable. I am a person, not an object. I take particular exception, however, to being made into a sexual object. My sexuality — the firing of neurons in my brain, the combination of feelings and sensations moving along my nerves, my body, my breasts, my vulva — does not exist for the pleasure of anyone but me. This is not to say that I’m selfish, that I would take pleasure from another while denying them pleasure from my body, my sex — it is to say that if I find it pleasurable to give pleasure to a particular person, that is my business. It is nothing that can be taken without my express will, my explicit consent. My body does not exist specifically for the visual or physical stimulation of others, especially those to whom I do not give permission to use me in this way.

“Don’t we all like to be objectified sometimes?”

No. I don’t. I don’t enjoy being made into a passive object to be manipulated. I don’t enjoy being made into something less-than-human. I don’t enjoy being ignored and overlooked as the individual that I am and instead made into something else against my own will.

Do I enjoy being found attractive? Yes, of course. Everyone does. But too often these two phenomona are conflated and confused. Being objectified, being verbally or sexually abused, is often said to merely be the same thing as attraction. It’s a compliment, it’s an honor to be harrassed on the street. Being a desireable object is confused with being a desireable human being. Being made into a thing to be used, which exists solely for the purpose of this use and is judged only on its usefulness, is not the same as being found attractive at all.

When a person finds another person attractive, that other person is still human. They are an active participant in all interactions. No one can have a relationship with an object; relationships are a dynamic, mutual process on the part of all involved. Relationships are an active process. In the dynamic of objectification, only one party retains active personal agency.

There is something to be said for the desire to submit, the desire to be passive, in a sexual or romantic dynamic. Some people feel more comfortable in dominant or submissive relationship roles. But this is still an active, consensual decision, and that is the distinction. In my relationships with my family, I enjoy caring for and taking care of others, I enjoy cooking and don’t mind cleaning because it makes everyone’s life more livable. If a young sibling is ill I will nelgect my own desires, my own plans for the day, in order to ensure that they are comfortable and all right. I would be absolutely the same if I were in a romantic relationship, because this is my personality and it is what gives me pleasure. I do not do this simply because it’s expected of me (it’s not), but because it is the role I am most comfortable expressing. This submission to the needs and desires of other people is an expression of love. If this submission is forced, rather than an active expression of the person in question’s authentic personality and desires, as it often is, that relationship is abusive.

A real relationship allows for everyone involved to act however they like, to fill whatever role they like. Objectification does not. Objectification forces a role and a purpose onto the object which, even on theoretical occasion that this role and purpose might conicide with how that particular person expresses themselves, still limits that person’s ability to be anything outside of that narrow set of expectations. It is still wrong, and it is always wrong.

I posit that no, nobody ever really likes to be objectified. When people ask that question, or when people say that they like a little objectification now and then, I think it’s clear what they actually mean is that they enjoy being found attractive, they enjoy attention. These are perfectly valid wants and desires. But I am not willing to accept that anyone on Earth actually wants, of their own free will, to lose any and all freedom to define themselves or to have any real agency in their own lives. Powerlessness as a fantasy or a kink is not the same as actual powerlessness, as actual slavery and bondage. No one who actually cares about the subject would think to conflate the two while describing submission in those terms, and the fact is that being made into an object is very real powerlessness, is very real bondage to another person’s desires at the expense of one’s own.

Objectification is a forced loss of self.

No one has any right to ever, under any circumstances, inflict this on another person.

I was surfing the internet today and came across a statement to the effect of: “a woman wearing clothes that show cleavage or going without a bra is guaranteed to get male attention”. This was put forth as an advantage, a good thing, something to be desired. Context is not important here, because the fact of the matter is that I see this sexualized attitude towards breasts and bras all the time, and I can’t stand it.

Finding a woman’s breasts attractive is not, in and of itself, inherently a bad thing. It’s an aesthetic disposition that I happen to share. In general, they’ve got a pleasing shape, they’re kind of fun to manipulate, and they tend to be attached to people that I like. Thinking any particular body part is sexy isn’t really the issue here.

The issue is that I cannot choose to wear or not wear certain tops or undergarments, in order to be physically comfortable, without my choice somehow making other people feel entitled to comment, criticize, or stare. The idea is that by wearing clothes which partially reveal my breasts, or by choosing not to wear a bra even beneath “conservative” attire, or even by simply, by virtue of nature, having large mammaries (or, indeed, breasts at all), I have no right to complain if others make degrading or unwanted sexual advances. Somehow, by the mere virtue of being a female who happens to have a couple interestingly-shaped lumps of fat on my chest, I’ve given up all right to be treated with respect or dignity.

There’s really nothing one can do to avoid it. Even if I do all the “right” things, wearing horrible contraptions under my clothes that make me uncomfortable, totally covering anything that could be construed as suggestive or “inappropriate”, constantly hunching over to draw less attention to my chest (the real burden of having breasts — not the weight on your back, not the strain on your shoulders), because they are large, and noticeable, people will still sexualize them and feel entitled to harass me based on their very existence.

On the subject of cleavage? Dude, they’re big. A shirt which shows nothing on a smaller girl still ends up showing cleavage on someone with larger breasts. Unless I cover myself almost up to the neck, there’s going to be a little bit. I don’t have to wear anything with an excessively low neckline in order to achieve the effect; and I’m certainly not going to wear uncomfortably hot clothes in the summer, in 80 degree weather, or even, really, if I just don’t feel like wearing something that covers my entire body. I’m not going to try to hide them and pretend they’re not there and I’m not going to be ashamed that they exist.

On the subject of bras? I think they’re a joke. I find them uncomfortable and unbearable. I haven’t worn one in about three years. Whatever one finds most comfortable, I think, is really key. I have a hard time understanding why anyone would voluntarily wear one, but I don’t understand the appeal of smearing colorful goop one’s face or wearing shoes that are impossible to walk in that cause back pain, either. I kind of like having smooth skin but shaving’s not high on my list of priorities on account of the fact that it takes a lot of time and effort and I get ingrown hairs easily. This is my preference. I don’t really care what other people want to do to themselves. What I do care about is the social expectation, the cultural norm. The idea that I have to do these things which make me uncomfortable and cause me pain, otherwise I am “not taking care of myself” or I’m “asking” for unwanted attention — and that either way, whether I really live up to the standard or not, either way it is still an excuse that my actions make me deserving of harassment and mistreatment.

I think the real problem here is the sexualization of women’s breasts. As I said earlier, I don’t see anything really wrong with finding them sexy, but this is more of an incidental, decentralized kind of attraction, kind of like, “he has nice eyes” or “I think she has sexy elbows” or…whatever. What I mean by the term “sexualization” is the idea that breasts are inherently sexual objects (and therefore at once indecent and also the focus of sexual attention) when, really, breasts are not any more sexual than any other feature of the body. Breasts serve a very specific biological purpose: to feed babies.

Breasts do not exist to be stared at, and their very presence on a person’s body does not suddenly mean that their owner abdicates all right to respect or dignity. The fact that I have breasts is not an invitation for clearly unwanted sexual attention (mostly from straight men) or for verbal abuse (more or less from anyone). There are many issues at work here: the sense of entitlement to women’s bodies, especially on the part of many heterosexual men, but also in general; cultural conformity; the idea that women exist for the sexual pleasure and objectification of men, coupled with the idea that anything sexual is evil and bad. But I don’t have the time and energy to deconstruct all that just now. I’m too tired from even thinking about the vastness of it all.

This attitude about breasts is not really the problem. It’s a symptom of so much else that’s wrong with the world. But, in and of itself, it’s awful enough. In order to avoid this sort of attention, I should not have to try to cover all traces of their shape, their function. Is an organ developed to nurture children really indecent or obscene? What does that say about the priorities of my culture?

For now, some interesting links to pursue:

007b is a site with some good content, but probably NSFW (not that it really should be; it’s just pictures of breastfeeding mothers and the like). Among the highlights are a page on why women wear bras and whether or not there’s really any reason to aside from social pressure, and a gallery of pictures of normal, average breasts showing the variety of shapes and sizes they come in, to try to give the viewer a bit of a sense of perspective.

And then a link I remembered seeing linked at Alas a bit ago, which I think speaks for itself.

Finally, an old fem_rage post which perhaps describes my feelings about the matter more accurately but less articulately and with a lot more cursing.

There are very few things which I think are requirements for someone to be considered “feminist”. People can believe, for the most part, whatever the hell they want. I don’t have to agree with everything every other feminist says or does. They don’t have to agree with me. We don’t have to have the same ideas on politics, economics, class, education, literature, movies, clothing, cosmetics, shaving.

I won’t say, for example, that wearing high heels and makeup makes someone a “bad” feminist. Although you’re never going to convince me that, at this moment in time, a woman who chooses to adorn herself in this fashion is truly making a choice free of cultural influence and social conditioning — it’s still a personal decision and it’s not mine to make. Things like this, the small things, the trivial things, are still feminist issues, and they’re big ones because they’re so insidious and pervasive, but they pale in comparison to the truly horrific problems that women face in this world. I don’t care how you like to dress or what kind of sex you like to have; when we live in a world with rape, domestic violence, and female genital mutilation, I’ll take any ally who agrees on the basic concept of human rights. If the only issue we disagree on is lipstick or even BDSM, we have more in common than not.

I won’t even put stipulations on most of the bigger issues. I’m a big, huge, idealistic anarchocommunist — but I won’t say that anyone else has to be. I think there’s lots of room to work with on most issues. Different people have different opinions and experiences, and I’m glad for that diversity of thought. (On that note, the people who think that feminism is one cohesive delusional body which feeds its own beliefs through a loop of unquestioning positive feedback have obviously never actually seen a group of feminists trying — and failing — to have a rational discussion on a topic like, say, sex work.)

But there are a very few stipulations which I consider essential for someone to be a “good” feminist, and if these criteria are not met, well, that person can consider themselves a feminist all they want, but that doesn’t mean I’ll respect their opinions.
One the things I think is unacceptable in a “real” feminist is transphobia.

A feminist should never reject the experience or identity of a transwoman as being invalid, of being lesser than cisgendered women, of not being “real” — in general, or until she takes hormones, or until she undergoes SRS, or whatever predefined criteria said feminist happens to have. A feminist should never insist that transwomen are actually men and thus, that they have no place in feminism and no protection under it (or that transmen are women who are “betraying the cause” in order to “gain” male privilege, as the case may be). I understand that this attitude casts a number of prominent and influential feminist thinkers of the past and present as “bad” feminists, and that’s unfortunate but, I think, also necessary. Transphobia should never be tolerated from a self-proclaimed feminist.

Let me explain why. It’s not merely an issue of respect for marginalized people, and it’s not merely because those who hold this attitude are dismissing the perfectly valid experiences of different kinds of women (as mainstream feminism has famously done not only with transwomen, but also lesbians, poor women, women of color, and so on). These side-effects are horrible and inexcusable, but the real issue is that, at the root of transphobia are all the beliefs that feminism is supposed to be fighting.

The insistence that transwomen are not “real” women, is, at its heart, fueled by the idea that biology equals destiny: the idea that one’s body parts define that person completely, that there is no individual room for change or variation, that a woman is only as good as her ability to give birth (therefore, as good as her uterus), or to serve as a sex object (therefore, as good as her vagina, as good as her breasts), or as a caretaker, a mother, a housewife, a passive decoration (therefore, as good as her ability to conform to “acceptable” gender roles).

And that, no matter how you disguise it or dress it up, no matter what excuses you might give about male privilege or socialization or experience in a transwoman’s history, is not feminism.

This is why transphobia is so deeply harmful to feminism as a whole. It hurts not only the statistically small minority of transgendered people within the movement, but also anyone else who believes in the idea that a woman is more than her vagina, more than her womb, more than her own victimization and oppression. Transphobia reduces everyone to a collection of parts, to be examined and scrutinized in order to see if they stand up to the test of being “good” or “real” enough — to see if they “deserve” rights and recognition.

Anyone can call themselves a feminist. Anyone can say they are whatever they want to say they are. But if they espouse ideals and opinions which run directly contrary to the ideology they claim to support and represent, they are no ally of mine.

So… I think I missed the part where I was part of some kind of militant lesbian feminist police state that kills anyone who disagrees with me. Apparently, I have the power to “force” people to agree with me while not being subject myself to scrutiny. Because my impression of what I’m doing here was advocating for all people to be treated with respect, and for their opinions and ideas to be dismissed on their own merits rather than based on an arbitrary judgment of the body the person putting the ideas forth happens to inhabit.

Here’s what I believe:

1) Every person deserves basic human rights. Every person deserves the right to live in relative comfort (with shelter, enough to eat) and should be able to live life however makes them most happy, according to their personality and who they define themselves to be. No one else can tell a person what makes them happy, or who they are.

2) When any person, ever, is prevented from living life in this state through the actions of another person, this is a source of injustice. Thus, if one person’s “happy life” consists of raping, murdering, killing others, etc., obviously, the right to the pursuit of “happiness” no longer stands.

3) I, as a fellow inhabitant of this world, have a duty and obligation to speak out and attempt to do something about the situation when I perceive injustices of this sort being perpetrated, and to criticize the structures of power which I believe are responsible for them.

I don’t think any person who actually cares about other people could possibly argue with the essence of 1 and 2. The particulars vary from religion to religion, but I think this idea is at the heart of any genuine moral philosophy. Obviously, there are people who don’t care if other people live or die, and if it’s fair or not, and these people I clearly do not hold in particularly high esteem. 3 is merely my own belief, and I recognize that not everyone is willing or able to expend time and energy into trying to change the world. I respect that.

On any statement other than 1 or 2, I’m willing to accept any difference of opinion as having some possible validity. People all have different life experiences, and process these and their meanings differently. Obviously, the universe is far more nuanced and complicated than just these two statements and there is plenty of discussion necessary to determine exactly how these ideas apply to the real world. People are free not to agree with me in the abundance of gray area surrounding. All I ask is that they disagree with my opinions respectfully and address my ideas, if they seem problematic, rather than attacking me personally in order to avoid a real discussion.

The problem is that any argument justifying oppression in any form does not agree with statement 1. A person who does not believe that all other human beings are deserving of basic rights and respect obviously cannot respectfully discuss such an assertion. The fact that I’m not willing to go along with, or accept as valid, any argument which assumes people are not fundamentally deserving of the same basic equal rights does not mean I am “forcing” my ideas on anyone. It means I have principles.

Another principle I’m committed to is absolute freedom of speech. That’s why I and other feminist bloggers are free to speak our piece, on our own websites, and why we are free to ignore, delete, and not publish comments which disagree with our core principles. If you somehow can find a way to actually justify disagreeing with the concept of treating others with respect, buy your own webspace. It’s no God-given right of yours to waste my time and bandwidth in the name of your freedom to disagree.

NEWSFLASH, world!

I do not care if you find me physically attractive or not.

Mind you, I know that many of you do. I think I’m hot, too. I’m not trying to sound conceited although there will always be someone who misinterprets this post this way. But I am truly, for the most part, happy about what I look like. I don’t see anything not to love, and the stuff I don’t quite accept unconditionally yet I’m working on. This is not something that has come easily to me, liking myself; it doesn’t come easily to any woman who’s been exposed to this world. It doesn’t matter where you are, even in the most primitive and isolated part of the globe; if you have magazines or television you’ve been bombarded with the message of the unobtainable ideal.

But fuck you all if you think that I somehow need your approval in order to allow myself this. Don’t think that by gracing me with your assessment of me I will be so overcome with gratitude that I will drop to my knees and blow you. Chances are, you’re probably staring at me and totally creeping me out. Not a good way to get me to like you back.

But if you think I’m intellectually sexy, I’ll take that as the highest compliment available.

… who just don’t understand why women could possibly be impatient or annoyed with them.

Dear Straight Guys,

I respectfully submit that perhaps, if you really want to be seen as an understanding or sensitive individual, that you need to start treating women as people. This goes clear down to your core: it’s not enough to pretend you understand this, it’s not enough to think that, so long as your sexism is benign and not overt and is carefully disguised as either concern or misguided admiration, that we will somehow ignore or appreciate the specialized sort of attention that you give. You need to change the way you think, the very way that you perceive your world.

1. So, first of all, it doesn’t all revolve around you. If I am discussing sexism or the unique difficulties women face, I can understand and appreciate the frustrations that men also grapple with in our society. Really, the problem isn’t so much men and women as the fact that all powerful institutions want to make everyone feel worthless, so that we will do whatever they tell us to. But, for now, I am talking about women and women’s unique position in the world, and it is not about the big picture. It is about us. About me. Your tangents derail the conversation and shift the focus so that the issues I want to raise are ignored. This is the problem.

This is symptomatic of a greater issue: the fact that men are trained to keep the focus on themselves. It’s not the conscious insecurity of the male ego which causes this to happen, but rather, the result in living in a culture which focuses on men the majority of the time. When attempting to give women equal time, and an equal voice, the fifty-fifty split (or, since this doesn’t exist yet in reality, even the attempt to approach it) seems unbalanced and skewed to the minds of many men. Women trying to have an equal voice seem to be silencing the men, simply because the men are not the ones currently talking about the current topic.

Resist the urge to assert yourself in defense of the male voice. We’ve already heard it, and doubtless we will hear it again. Save it until we’re finished. Do it somewhere else.

2. Second of all, it doesn’t all revolve around you. Whether or not you find someone attractive, whether or not anybody else might possibly find someone attractive, whether a woman is pretty or not: it’s not relevant to feminist discussion. EVER. We should not be valued based on our attractiveness to men. We should not be considered only in this context. When I am talking about women who behave in a traditionally unladylike manner, or who are unconventionally attractive, or are in any way otherwise outside the gender norm, their saving grace is not that they still happen to make your particular penis happy. So you like her. Big fucking deal. It’s not about what you like. Women will be who they are regardless if you, you in particular, happen to approve of them or not.

It’s rude and condescending to act this way. This, again, detracts from the focus of the discussion. This devalues women as unique individuals with opinions and ideas and lives. Our worth should never be dependent on other people’s opinions in this way, and least of all in feminist discussion, of all places.

So stop it, already.

3. We are all human beings. We are all similar lumps of fleshy matter that moves and grunts and goes around its daily business. Until you can look at any random woman on the street and see the human being before you start placing significance on the gender presentation, until being human, of any variety, any color, any sexual orientation, any genitalia, any anything, is the nebulous vague default in your mind, you still need to try harder. If you automatically assume a person of unspecified gender or sex is “he”, or white, able-bodied, and heterosexual, that is your problem. And this is why so many of us have no time or patience to try to explain things to you.

4. Speaking of which, I am not required to explain myself. I don’t need to justify myself to anyone but myself, and I sleep well enough at night, thank you. If you don’t understand a concept, certainly, ask. If the answer upsets you, makes you defensive, or confuses you, don’t insist on continuing the conversation. Actually THINK about the answer, and what it was that upset or confused you, and after you have carefully considered what we say, and actually listened, then we can talk some more. But you are not necessarily entitled to have everything placed in a pretty little box for you.

5. I hate that I even have to disclaim that, sure, okay, “not all men are actually like this”. I’m sure in some hypothetical world my sweeping generalizations are grossly inaccurate. But, realistically? In the world I live in and with the men that I know and love and interact with on a daily basis?

You pretty much all do this shit at least some of the time.

If you are one of the handful of men I have met who actually treat women like people, though, this disclaimer won’t mean anything to you. If you aren’t guilty of the offenses I’ve outlined, you aren’t defensive about it. You’re one of those guys who reads the whole list and nods along and then genuinely apologizes for your gender (while not feeling the need to defend yourself by insisting you do not represent these men). You don’t need the disclaimer because my stinging man-hating feminist barbs don’t really hurt.

The rest of you, though, might have a few things to think about.