This last year has made me sad to learn, about mine and others' pasts and actions, just to what extent women have learned (despite feminism - actually, mistaking feminism) to hate their womanhood and that of others.
Firstly - feminism isn't women acting like men; it's the assertion that women are strong, capable, beautiful, and have self-sovereign personhood. Secondly - social prescriptions on women's behavior is a result of a society's man-culture accepting that men pose a threat to women (i.e. women must be protected from OTHER men) - not all cultures have this.
With that in mind, consider that post-roman culture in the West has considered women's internal workings as inconvenient and unintelligible. Some men still deal with a lack of understanding of the ramifications of their own feelings and actions as being the fault or 'irrationality' of women.
A broad generalization of girls and women in the last 20 years (though not limited to) involves:
1. Girls being told they are invalid by actions purpetrated by their parent - parent-child role reversal/negation, abuse, neglect... etc., even subtle passing on of self-hate. This tells girls that their womanhood is something ugly, something to be ashamed of or admonished either through direct association or conditioning resulting from how the parent is viewed (conclusion explained in psychological literature).
2. Women being told they are invalid by men - labeling them or disregarding them because of a lack of understanding and because the woman's feelings and actions are inconvenient. This sounds pretty obvious and brutal, but it's subtle, and wide-spread.
3. Women who were those invalidated girls usually accept the role (even when thinking they're fighting it), and even sometimes go out of their way to accomodate the convenience of a man - they have accepted being a non-person. they may even embrace it and call it empowerment because they 'control' themselves by invalidating their legitimate feelings, and the things that make them beautiful as women.
4. This has also led girls and women to despise each other. Girls learned from mom that women are repellant or shameful or can't be trusted- so other girls should be repelled or shamed and not trusted. Women learned from men that femininity is crazy - so they treat other women's needs, feelings, and actions as crazy.
5. Women usually come to an age where they realize that something not quite rigjt is going on - and they learn to assert themselves even to the point of no remorse.
So, let's stop doing it. Let's find ways now to stop letting a lack of understanding what makes us amazing, beautiful, strong, feminine women keep us chained to so much anger and hate - of ourselves, and our fellow women. Let's not wait til we wake-up one day and realize something is very very wrong in what we were taught. We can't undo the past, but we make the present and future.
This to men, too - because you are happier with women who are happy - invaliating does not make ugliness go away, it festers to resentment. Women are amazing persons, and are worth the effort to validate.
