Feminism

"I drink poison Then I vomit diamonds

I gave you Mandela, Black Dalai Lamas

I gave you music

You enthused in my kindness

So how dare you reduce me to Donny Imus

Timeless in case we never been acquainted

Flyness who made it It gets duplicated"

- K'Naan in "Tribal War" Nas/ Damian Marley ft. K'Naan

Let's return to education.

I've always resented the label feminist when it comes to me, nor do I speak as much about gender inequality as I do about race and ethnicity in this blog. I've never been one of those women who hangs out in a group of other women and shares her feelings about sisterhood or "female issues". I yell at basketball/ football players on T.V., and when I express myself, it's usually with male friends or partners because they tend know what to say without saying too much or anything. They play music or put in a movie as a form of care.

Most people think of feminists as angry bitches who blame men for gender inequality (a misinformed definition). But believing that men also have a difficult time because society gives them much less love and fewer tools to express themselves emotionally, in addition to making them still feel the pressure to be a provider (esp. men of color), creates pain for boys and men despite the culture of patriarchy and male privilege. Boys are struggling in school and no one extends a hand of love and compassion to them merely because they are boys and boys are supposed to be stoic.

So I resent the "feminist" label, even while I am whole-heartedly, a feminist.

But there is always a but, as is the case when I feel a sharp sense of disappointment when sweet, caring men transform into sexist, homophobic, insensitive, crude people when they are around one another. When a "beautiful women" becomes a "chick" and a "ho." Where the language and ideas of mysogynistic music videos which people party to (and should only be used to listen to and party to) becomes ideas men take up in real life. A part of it is a performance in order to fit in with other men, and I can appreciate and understand that facet fully, but I tend to see that more and more of it, is a part of them that they want to be blinded to and hold on to which perpetuates women as objects they can subjugate...and the real definition of feminism is about equality and not about women being prude.

I tend to blow the male machismo off as bad performances but subconsciously, it's probably (it is!) the reason behind why I've grown apart from certain people (men!).

Because many men, even at Colby, even in Education classes, have the tendency to not understand the severity of misogyny and sexual assault and how this has everything to do with a system of patriarchy and law which protects men and silences women. I empathize with most things. Men are not allowed to feel the way women are allowed to feel. Men are not given as much emotional support. Women give them contradictory messages because nice guys never end with a great girl. Men of color are seeing women of color outperform them in education and career while seeing that gender expectations in communities of color remain the same. Men are limited in how they are allowed to present themselves... none of this information is new, and I'm always caught off guard that more people don't seem to care about how young boys are raised and the pressures society puts on them. But ignorance and excuses is much more difficult to be empathic to.

An overwhelming majority of women already do not report sexual assault, and for those who do, the extremely male oriented judicial system, does not support them. Rape happens more then women lie about being raped to spite men and put them away (come on!).

It starts with the performance when guys hang around other guys who engrain them with derogatory terms to use against their girlfriends, mothers, and sisters, followed by their sense of entitlement of how women should treat them, and who they can grab at a dance to who "should" give them sex... it's problematic.