I have feelings today

[cjsmith]

I don’t want to live in a fascist country. I don’t want to live in a country ruled by hatred and bigotry and conspiracy theories and death cults. (But no country other than the US would have me.)

I don’t want to live on a planet where women aren’t people. But there is no place else. There’s literally nowhere I could live where I would not be hated for the body I was born with and where I would have the basic human rights that people born with dangly genitalia have.

Nowhere.

Comments

[noelfigart]

Yeah. I'm with you.

On a personal level, I want to stay with Peter because I love him, not because I'd be screwed without him.

[cjsmith]

That too.

A wise person asked me once, about a person who was dear to me: “Does he need you to need him or can he realize that you don’t NEED him and find joy that you WANT him?” I now wonder whether our cultural narrative is that women must be enslaved because men are that insecure.

[labelleizzy]

I spent many many years in relationships where I was convinced that I legit could not afford to live alone. And whenever and wherever vthat's true, it's fucked up.

And I've been with men who definitely demonstrated completely entitled behavior. Which, GROSS.

Sorry, I have not had enough sleep to be rational about this.

[cjsmith]

It’s way fucked up, I agree. Sleep is good stuff and I hope you get some, but I’m not sure that will make this world something that can be viewed rationally. :/

[amaebi]

I think it's rooted in something harder to repair: the culturally embedded understanding that Men Are the Center, the Judges, the Standards, Representing the Fabric of the Universe. That out of this they can be benevolent or malevolent, but that they are dictators.

It is difficult even to get people to perceive this*, but I keep whittling away at it.

* So of course I may be wrong. But I don't think so. Obviously.

[cjsmith]

I have a shorthand for that. Men (especially cis men, especially white ones) are people - and everyone else isn’t. It all follows from that. Of course they’re the center, naturally they’re the only ones whose opinion matters, obviously they can choose to be benevolent or not as they please. They’re the only people in the picture.

[amaebi]

That's just it, yeah.

I'm not too likely to switch to it for attempted-communication purposes, though: I keep hoping to help people become able to say to themselves, "Aha! This is a frustrating conversation for me because it's not a conversation! Peter Dangly is framing it as my presenting a petition to him which he will graciously Judge!" and then point it out to Peter Dangly and everyone in the vicinity.

The concept of who's a person will get widespread agreement from feminists and womanists, but so far as I've seen tends to have no boots on the ground.

[cjsmith]

Yeah... as best I can tell, none of this has boots on the ground. I wish I knew that something did.

[marahmarie]

They're stronger so they can and will hurt us if we don't like whatever it is we don't like. That's what it's come down to since the beginning of time. There are a few places where women are clawing their independence back (say, Denmark) either with or without the help of the state and at least one African tribe where the women rule and men are merely supplemental/ornamental and are openly and avidly treated as such (and yes, they accept it) but outside of that I can't think of exceptions.

[amaebi]

They're stronger in that they have positions of power.

[marahmarie]

They have positions of power because they're stronger. While it might seem reductive to point to such a primitive answer ("ME Tarzan, you Jane"), that doesn't negate the reality.

[amaebi]

Oooooh, you cited "reality." That's so persuasive! And you have perfectly explained Jeff Bezos-- his Mighty Thews!

[marahmarie]

And I knew you'd react like this to the point I was almost like, "Why even bother", but hey, you do you!

[cjsmith]

If you mean physical strength, I'll disagree on that bit. The bell curves for cis-male and cis-female physical strength overlap enough that the disproportionate representation of male versus female in positions of power doesn't remotely match. Not to mention race -- I'm not going to try to imagine that white people have many more of the positions of power because white people are inherently stronger, or smarter, or more capable, than Black people or other people of color.

[marahmarie]

I'm saying (my opinion only, though I do think it might be based in some *ahem* *ducks* reality) that the perception cis men have of themselves as being stronger/more dominant by nature and/or nuture and the perhaps equally pervasive perception women have of cis men being as such is what contributes to the problem, if not entirely what's created it (going back to the beginning of say agriculture, when cis men/cis women went from being roughly co-equal partners to more or less what we still (unfortunately) have now).

I actually agree with everything amaebi has to say here, I'm just trying (have always been trying) to figure out the why of it.

[hitchhiker]

yeah :( i wish the world were a better place for you and for women in general.

[cjsmith]

I wish too.

How much longer do I have to live like this? :(

[amaebi]

yup. It sucks the big hairy one.

[cjsmith]

Sure does. :(

[lcohen]

right there with you. no solutions--only feelings :( .

[cjsmith]

Solidarity. ♥

[ororo]

Arrggh. Shriek. Sympathy.

[cjsmith]

Thanks. ♥

[billeyler]

We wake up every day totally dismayed by what's going on in our country. We just don't understand. We thought it would get better after January.

[cjsmith]

I admit with embarrassment that I too was taken in by the optimism. I thought things would be much better than this by now.

[marahmarie]

(But no country other than the US would have me.)

What? Why?

That settles it...*gathers others to build country that will have you*

[labelleizzy]

I was wondering about that line myself.

*Offers cjsmith leans or hugs as might be comforting*

[cjsmith]

Thank you. <3 <3 (see other response for reasoning)

[cjsmith]

Mostly it's that I am an Old. In countries where the financial burden of health care is shared, immigration of Olds is not desirable. Makes sense, but it's nonetheless personally disappointing.

To be perfectly honest, if I were a civilized nation, I'd look askance at importing anybody from the USA, too. As a nation: bigoted, anti-science, rabidly individualistic, off-the-charts violent, divisive and screaming rather than listening or compassionate... we're a mess.

[marahmarie]

Mostly it's that I am an Old. In countries where the financial burden of health care is shared, immigration of Olds is not desirable. Makes sense, but it's nonetheless personally disappointing.

This is not a topic I've looked into before so genuinely curious: is our immigration not desirable or is it not feasible? Like, do such countries literally turn Olds away (I am an Old, so this is a shared anxiety/concern)?

If it's not desirable I'd say screw them, do it anyhow, if that's what you want to do. If it's not feasible because say a majority of Olds really do get turned away, then yeah, that sucks/there should be some organization one could appeal to and/or go activist on to force such countries to make changes.

Does the US have a similar policy of discriminating against foreign Olds? I'm not really looking for answers from you on any of this if you don't already know them, it's just got me thinking now.