I
don’t know how to put this as to not anger anyone, but then I remembered I don’t
care. Over the weekend, I heard a socialist invoke intersectionality to dismiss
the concerns of women and black people because CLASS! I’m not even going to
highlight the irony there, just take a minute and bask in it and the total lack
of self-awareness. Lean in everyone, capitalism sucks. Capitalism has been
notoriously bad for workers, particularly workers who identify as women and
people of color (you know the one’s excluded from the unions early on).
Capitalism also came after gendered and racial divisions. This is why no one likes you. I swear to god every
time I go to one of these things, it is an exercise in self-control. Then the
group on to discuss gender as a binary, which explains the lack of gender queer
and Trans individuals in that room, in a city with a radial Trans population. But is fine. White guys doing it for themselves. They’ll liberate all of us, and we
can say thank you, politely with a smile. There was a very good point raised
that women’s issues, issues important to people of color, etc. are optional for
the left whereas the labor struggle is a given. That resonates, and the group
quickly moved on.
But
why am I complaining about all this? Some of the
attacks on Hillary Clinton from the left are sexist. To dismiss them is
to dismiss the concerns of women on the left. Some of the critiques of Clinton
would be sound if they didn’t devolve into gendered critiques. The language you
use matters, and I’m offended that men think they can tell me what feminism is.
Fuck you buddy. Fuck you. Was that not clear? F-u-c-k you.
You
know what I think is an affront to feminism? Men
deciding what it is without doing any work. Hillary Clinton is a feminist. She
is a radical or a liberal feminist, and if any of you guys bothered reading a
feminist theory book or even just googling it you’d know what that means. The
liberal and radical feminists fought for legal rights and protections; they
were less concerned with economic inequality and more concerned with being able
to make medical decisions without their husbands. I’m not a radical or a
liberal feminist. I’m a Marxist feminist, but I appreciate and respect their
struggles while I disagree with them.
But
let’s talk about some patriarchy and condescension. When you say women are
defending Hillary because she is a woman that is offensive. It means women will
back any woman regardless of politics. There is also a weird essentialism happening
here too, and I’ve seen it written a few times about women supporting anyone
with a vagina, which is weird since all women don’t have vaginas, but what can
we expect? Nuance? Please, not these guys strong point. But you know what, men
should totally tell me what I think and why I think it. That totally isn’t
sexist and condescending.
Don’t
get me wrong, the struggle is real, but you don’t get to decide if something is
coming off as sexist. Sure it wasn’t your intention, but *shrug*. I might have
cried in a room where everyone was chanting liar while Clinton was on screen.
It is an emotion inducing word for me. See men call a lot of women liars
usually survivors of sexual assault. It has at some point become gendered;
women lie. We’re seen as less trustworthy
than men. Now, Clinton has lied about things during her political, which makes
it hard, but everything is hard, and if it is too hard to be specific and clear
then you shouldn’t be talking about it. But every time I read someone’s take on
all this as all in women’s minds, all I hear is gaslighting. I guess women are just
too fucking stupid to know when something sexist is going on. Must be in their
heads because the women folk are irrational. Forget the dude who said some
pretty offensive things to me when I pointed out the false equivalency of the
first Jewish President and first woman president. These things are not the same.
Well, that isn’t evidence anyway, right?
That is just me being hypersensitive
(which as all of you know is totally a word to describe me), and it is anecdotal
at best.
