I had to read this line about four times
“How can women supposedly acting freely and powerfully keep turning up tales of vulnerability-repulsive sexual partners, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, even rape?”
Source: Linda Hirshman
My first reaction is “Uh, because they’re HUMAN.”
I think the “repulsive sexual partners” is the first thing that gets to me. Mostly because despite being a loud, powerful, successful feminist I was in a soul-destroying abusive relationship for three years. I get really tired of the “Why don’t they just leave?!” bullshit because for some reason people don’t get that if you hate yourself you’re not going to do anything to make your life better. The only real way to make things better is a move to external, to focus on how you can make other people’s lives better, but when you are constantly at the whim of a malicious, manipulative, selfish person it is almost impossible.
Once you get to “rape” you’re way too far down the yellow brick road to come back to sanity. Sorry to break this to you, but you’re likely to get raped whether or not you’re wearing provocative clothing/drinking/doing crazy shit. I learned this at 11 wearing army fatigues and a baggy white T-shirt at a HAM convention. Moving on.
Even “pregnancy” and “sexually transmitted diseases” gets to me. Yeah, I know, these “free and powerful” feminist women are supposed to conform to the ideals of society too. They should always make the right decisions so that their parents have something to be proud of. I think this statement shows her ignorance about Jezebel entirely, because one of the realities of human life is that some people make mistakes, and often what women (especially those who are constantly expected to be bastions of society, like feminists) need is validation. That their mistakes don’t necessarily make them weak, they can make them stronger. I’ve made plenty of fucking terrible decisions for myself, but if I spend my whole life deriding myself for them (even those mistakes I continue to make) and not standing up for what I believe in because I feel I am suddenly a bad role model (Is anyone a perfect role model?), I will amount to nothing.
The editors at Jezebel are human. I am human. Feminists are human. My question for Ms. Hirshman is: Isn’t humanity a GOOD thing?
