Pele'sDaughter wrote: More hurtful is the casual, everyday misogyny of the men we love and trust.
i would have to imagine as much, having not personally experienced it myself. I do know, however, that it is often true that hurt comes more easily from nearby sources.
No, I don't hate men.
It would, however, be fair to say that I don't easily trust them.
for my part, this feeling is mutual. although i might admit that i probably do both hate and fear women.
[all of them]
i should like to elaborate on this more later, as i regard it as being of paramount importance.
the eye rolling and exasperated sighs in response to polite requests to please not use misogynist epithets in my presence or to please use non-gendered language ("humankind").
OP ED has decided to go ahead and hang himself out to dry by lodging a complaint:
attn: wimmintern, to whom it may concern, etc:
while i'm on board, as much as can be possible, with considering it within the normal bounds of politeness to avoid misogynist epithets when i am aware of them, which is not always, i confess that if someone made the second request of me i would almost certainly be guilty of eye rolling and exasperation. This is because i actually consider it to be an unreasonable request. By "unreasonable", i mean, btw, literally impossible in most instances.
for example, i'd suggest that "human" meaning literally "of or belonging to a man" is in fact more genderbiased than the alternative, as i read them. To an IE tribalist using the rootwords, it would be even more exclusionary, literally referring to the tribe as being the property of the chieftain. In many ways, this goes back to my previous statements about different people reading the same words with clashing interpretations. All languages are based on making assumptive biases about objects, some are worse than others, but an unbiased language is an oxymoron.
to me your phrase "nongendered language" literally means nothing in and of itself, therefore if we were talking i'd be forced to make a list of your preferences so that i could entertain your biases instead of my own. Language reflects its cultural usage in all cases, as such, a truly non-gender-biased speech could only exist in a non-biased culture and would likely be dependent on these preexisting conditions for its evolution to begin with.
which is to say, sometimes people roll their eyes because they really do not understand what the points of certain requests are supposed to be.
note that none of this is meant to be hostile, btw, but it is admittedly exasperated. perhaps i have misunderstood the nature of this request, as i often do, and have merely revealed my ignorance to the population at large and exposed myself to its collective wrath.
There are the insidious assumptions guiding our interactions – the supposition that I will regard being exceptionalised as a compliment ("you're not like those other women"), and the presumption that I am an ally against certain kinds of women.
is not being exceptionalised a compliment?
In those instances in my personal life wherein this phrase, minus exactly one syllable, has been whispered in my ear, i have universally understood it as an intentional compliment and not necessarily as an insult directed at the rest of my gender. Should i have?
perhaps the context is more important than the phrase, and i am missing your point again. I had assumed, mistrust being mutual, that exceptionalising is the goal of the mentioned process of attempting to gain trust.
as if womanhood were an exotic locale which provides magnificent fodder for the amateur ethnographer.
but it is, and it does, although that is not all it is or does. I only mention this to make the point that as i see it you have exactly two possibilities wrt men and their inability to directly experience being a woman:
1. having them misunderstand.
2. having them not try to understand.
Having to choose the lesser of evils is never a prospect which is enviable for anyone, but sometimes evil is all there is.
[you could kill us all, i suppose]
which is not to say that i don't get the idea of it being beyond annoying for one to assume that our massive collection of statistics and "facts" about women is sufficient to understand the reality of being woman, but to say that i refuse to apologise for not being other than what i am.
There are the stereotypes – oh, the abundant stereotypes – about women, not me, of course, but other women, those women with their bad driving and their relentless shopping habits and their PMS and their disgusting vanity and their inability to stop talking and their disinterest in Important Things and their trying to trap men and their getting pregnant on purpose and their false rape accusations and their being bitches, sluts, whores, cunts.
While i have met some of these women before, i have a dislike for stereotyping of any sort, so i am in more or less total agreement with consdering this to be an unmixed malady.
There is the unwillingness to listen, a ferociously stubborn not getting it on so many things, so many important things. And the obdurate refusal to believe, to internalise
pegged.
although OP ED believes he is actually incapable of internalising some things. Doesn't get it on so many things.
[see language above]
Not every man does all of these things, or even most of them, and certainly not all the time.
I've personally done most, if not all, of these things and i do many of them all the time. [frequently, that is]
All of whom have given me reason to mistrust them, to use my distrust as a self-protection mechanism, as an essential tool to get through every day, because I never know when I might next get knocked off-kilter with something that puts me in the position, once again, of choosing between my dignity and the serenity of our relationship.
It can come out of nowhere, and usually does. Which leaves me mistrustful by both necessity and design. Not fearful, just resigned – and on my guard. More vulnerability than that allows for the possibility of wounds that do not heal. Wounds to our relationship, the sort of irreparable damage that leaves one unable to look in the eye someone that you loved once upon a time.
that's terrifying. thanks. [really]
Or you can be vigilant and make yourselves trustworthy. Every day.
That is something i'm sure i do not believe and i sincerely doubt i ever will.
