The Feminazis Made Me Do It...

I struggle, greatly, with feminism.
Of course I have hinting suspicions that I'm paid less than the average male, looked at differently in the workplace, and otherwise told that pieces of my body are filled with sin and grotesque oozing matter.  But I just can't find it in my heart to tear open my shirt, beat on my beautiful breasts in triumph, and allow my vagina to roar at the injustice of the world.

Maybe that was a bit insensitive to my feminist friends.  I apologize.  Profusely.  I like what you do- it's just I can't stand how a large majority of you do it.  This post is going to be about that.  And it's going to be vulgar.  And you probably will be offended- and for what it's worth, I'm sorry- I'm gonna say it anyway.

But every group, no matter HOW good/empowering/well-intended, has its flaws- and its stereotypes.  No one is exempt.  And I am afraid I struggle with the stereotypical "feminazi" prototype the most.
Please do not misunderstand me.  Or put me in one of your "women boxes"- I can't fucking stand that.  I'm not a "self-loathing female", nor am I a woman who feels she needs to be "put in her place", nor am I trying to emulate some sort of 1950s model-trophy-wife thing.  But I'm also not a rip-roaring, sign-toting, loud female in jeans tossing menstrual blood around like a PETA fanatic and telling the government to keep its hands off my pussy.  These- are extremes- in both respects.  But I really, truly struggle with feminism.
The truth is, I DON'T see a lot of discrimination based on just my sex.  I see more discrimination based on my age, my shape, the size of my tits, whether I have an illness or not, what my every little flaw is- than I see discrimination for my extra X chromosome.  And you know what?  If wearing a low-cut shirt gets me an A on that final in that class that I can't seem to stay awake through, then so be it- use what you have- provided you're not lowering and debasing yourself. 

(It's not like I let the guy pet me, for crying out loud.  It was a V-neck shirt.  It puckered in the front, right where the cleave shot is.  The man likes tits- I get it.  I happen to like my tits quite a lot.  I don't mind showing them off and getting a little appreciation for the lovely lumps the Lord gave me.  He takes a few glances and I mysteriously get a few points higher on the final.  No one got hurt here.  He got his five minutes of frivolity and I didn't have to wiggle my juicy parts around like some drunken slut at a Girls Gone Wild party.  You use what you have.  It's not sick and submissive- it's smart.  Besides, if you had a pair of fine D cups, I bet you'd show them off once in a while, too.)

What did Eminem say in one of his raps?  "We ain't nothin' but mammals."  It's true.  We just happen to speak different languages and create societies and stuff.  We just happen to think we're important.  But WHAT is this race-to-the-top bullshit about?  Men got the better shake because their stupid nightmares got published in the Bible?  Men make more money because they're physically stronger and that somehow makes them better?  You get to have multiple orgasms, ladies.  You have as many legends in the millions of religions in the world as the men do in Christianity and Christian-based beliefs.  You ARE heard when you ask to be treated equally or there wouldn't be so many women at the top of companies today- entrepreneurs, managers, doctors, the list goes on.  Grow up and let go of your insecurities, women.  You have prowess and power.  It comes in a different form, a different package.  Quit trying to compensate for not having a penis and use your damned brain.  That's how your counterparts got to the top of their companies- I mean it. 

And please stop shoving your vaginal gloryholes in my face.  It's distracting and I just don't swing that pendulum.

I admit, I got a bad taste in my mouth doing women's empowerment things in my early twenties.  (Leave it alone, that's not what I meant.)  I found a community that embraced strengthening women and did lots of activities to support that.  I found people and mentors who encouraged me to think with my lady parts; embrace my lady parts; fight with my lady parts.  I did Kegels for cookies of self-empowerment.  I went to circles where women shared stories about reclaiming their identities and took new names and found new lives.  I meditated during my menstrual flows.  I embraced every time the full moon lined up with my cycle so strongly, in fact, that one night I did a ritual where I wrote myself a love letter scrawled in a mixture of red wine and my own menstrual blood.  You know what I got from that experience?

Messy. 

And my bedroom looked like a damn murder scene.

Look, I get it.  Your core feminine self is full of power.  Blood is magical.  Your vagina works in mysterious ways and it's a cavern of birth.  And maybe you don't love yourself enough because your mother didn't tuck you in at night, or somebody abused your beauty box, or society has somehow otherwise indicated to you that you're not special...you're disadvantaged.  But you are not.  And none of these rituals- however powerful they may be- are going to tell you that...until you tell that to YOURSELF.  In your OWN comfort zone.  I swear to you, no amount of menses-blood-writing will cause you to have that epiphany, no matter HOW many "om mani padme hums" you chant while doing it.

I learned this the hard way.  After months of women's empowerment books and carrying a massive chip on my shoulder through my male-dominated profession, I realized that the only thing I was turning into was a self-empowered, isolated...bitch.  "The System" was against me, "Society" was against me, and my mother ruined any chance I had at loving myself because she was Catholic and didn't love her body enough because she wouldn't reveal her innermost sexual desires to anyone and seemed not to ever be intimate with her husband.  Did it occur to me that my mother's privacy was part of what kept sex sacred to her?  No.  Did it occur to me that by distancing myself from "The System", I was just refusing to find a solution to the problem, or a fit for myself?  No.  I had taken my womanly self far too seriously- I had embraced my vagina so much that it practically swallowed me whole.  And I found, once inside this sticky, slimy metaphor...that I wasn't acting ANYTHING like myself.

So the "moon nights" stopped at my house.  The "embrace-your-feminine-power" books got shoved in the back of my closet.  I left the women's circle to the women who seemed like they still needed it.  And I started listening to the rest of the world, with ALL of its sides.  The black, the white, the grey, the purple, the...whatever.  And I realized that I had been fighting an imaginary demon.  No one was out to undermine me, no one was out to "get" me.  It wasn't personal.  It wasn't even anything beyond the dog-eat-dog competition I had suspected existed in society all along, regardless of sex. 

I must have disappointed my mentor every other day the week I decided to let go of this femiwisdom thing I had gone through.  I just "wasn't loving myself enough", or I was just hitting a "breakthrough- just stay with it".  But the breakthroughs were breaking me.  I had hurt my mother's feelings over half a dozen times- suggesting she was frigid, ruthless, etc...when perhaps there was an entirely different reason she acted the way she did sometimes.  It would take me five years to learn some of those reasons.  It would take a few strange moments dressing on my wedding day to discover that being a woman- a powerful woman- means embracing it all...even your inner man.  (Yep.  I went there.)

So when someone asks me to stand up for women's rights, I nod and I smile.  I don't disagree that we have to protect ourselves...just as much as a man has to protect himself.  You can go out and have your rallies about how women have the right to choose and use birth control, and I'll pump a fist in the air in your honor...from my stance in the crowd of men too ashamed to admit they've been sexually assaulted because "that doesn't happen to men".  You can tell me that I need to meditate and vibrate my vagina, and I'll thank you for the suggestion- but it's more likely that I'll go home and make love to my husband.  And be on bottom, because that's where it feels the best- not because I'm sickly "oppressed".  And moon rituals are nice- but they're bloody.  And I really don't like blood.  Nor do I much like it when that thing between my legs bleeds.  I'm sure pregnancy and motherhood is wonderful, but I still think menses suck- even if I do get an uncanny ability to predict things for several days during my cycle.

I'm a woman in a male-dominated profession.  I like it here.  But I don't pretend to have a big thick cock in my pants, and I don't shove my tits in anyone's face, either.  I won't gyrate on your groin for a job and I won't string you out in a lawsuit for casting an occasional eye on the fullness of my breasts.  I'm just a woman.  With plenty of drive.  With plenty of feminine charm and wile and a heart like an ox.  I'm a passionate sunuvabitch.  I'm tacky.  I drink beer and curse like a sailor, and I like a little kink in my drink, if you catch my meaning.  I also slip into pencil skirts and stockings with seams and high heels that could stab your testicles like shish kabob.  I played with Barbies and I played with dolls.  I tease.  I look at other women and think they're beautiful- the same as I do with men.  I like being a housewife who cooks and cleans- but I also like being the lady in charge at work, who comes home and demands the pants in the relationship.  And my husband likes both of those quirks.  I'm fat and fluffy and sentimental, but I can still lay a punch and break a jaw if you ask me whose cock I sucked to get here.  And I might be slightly more squishy than most.  I am a woman.


But believe me, that's hardly all.