Social justice concerns are hard (whether feminist, racial concerns, LGBT+ concerns, etc). They're about matters that are personal ("personal is political, political is personal" goes the old motto) because they're often about our identities or identities of people close to us. Implicit biases abound, privilege is abound, and there are a lot more people that don't get it than do get it, so the struggle is daily.
You might feel overwhelmed, so you try to get away from it for a little bit. But then the nice guy at the bar who doesn't really mean any harm by it still calls you "honey." You go for a jog and you get catcalled. You get told to smile. You get things explained to you that you already know. You try to play a video game to be confronted with everyday looking men (but the women have to be sexy).
They're little things, tiny things, little itty bitty stings that aren't even bee stings and don't even hurt, but the constant barrage wears you down just the same. Feeling the need to respond to sexism and misogyny because you know deep down inside that every instance that isn't responded to perpetuates the culture, and you think things like "silence is assent," even if you also tell yourself to pick your battles.
There's no rewards even if you do pick your battles well: you get scorn, disdain. You're "screeching," or you're "making a mountain over a mole hill, lady."
So what do you do? You cultivate social circles that already know the things, where you don't have to constantly fight the things. But then it's even more jarring when you're outside of these spaces, where the war is on again: the war against tiny little things that don't even hurt (sometimes), that some people question why you even fight. Because it's like being covered in bugs everywhere you go.
What's the point of this post? I don't know. Maybe just venting. Maybe we just need to remind ourselves that a lot of things are getting better. But there's a long way to go for culture to shed a lot of its implicit biases and recognize its privileges.
You might feel overwhelmed, so you try to get away from it for a little bit. But then the nice guy at the bar who doesn't really mean any harm by it still calls you "honey." You go for a jog and you get catcalled. You get told to smile. You get things explained to you that you already know. You try to play a video game to be confronted with everyday looking men (but the women have to be sexy).
They're little things, tiny things, little itty bitty stings that aren't even bee stings and don't even hurt, but the constant barrage wears you down just the same. Feeling the need to respond to sexism and misogyny because you know deep down inside that every instance that isn't responded to perpetuates the culture, and you think things like "silence is assent," even if you also tell yourself to pick your battles.
There's no rewards even if you do pick your battles well: you get scorn, disdain. You're "screeching," or you're "making a mountain over a mole hill, lady."
So what do you do? You cultivate social circles that already know the things, where you don't have to constantly fight the things. But then it's even more jarring when you're outside of these spaces, where the war is on again: the war against tiny little things that don't even hurt (sometimes), that some people question why you even fight. Because it's like being covered in bugs everywhere you go.
What's the point of this post? I don't know. Maybe just venting. Maybe we just need to remind ourselves that a lot of things are getting better. But there's a long way to go for culture to shed a lot of its implicit biases and recognize its privileges.
