Equal

I’m so tired at the moment of how many men seem to have an ingrained sense of ‘natural superiority’ over women. I’m so tired of living near that, of living surrounded by people like that, in a society/world/neighbourhood like that. It’s as if they were born with this ignorance – but they are not. They are raised into it. Both the men and the women in their lives raised them to assume that they somehow  are one up on women.

And to stand up against that, to consistently and clearly challenge that, it’s exhausting and frustrating and seemingly endless. Men ‘explaining’ things to me, not respecting my space, or my thoughts, men mistaking friendliness for advances – or for weakness, or confusing confidence with criticism. Men telling me what I can and cannot be, what I can and cannot do.

There are days when I just want to walk away from that. And yet there’s nowhere to hide. So all there is to do is to keep at it. Keep at it. Annoy all the men around you by constantly challenging them on their presumptions, in the hope that some day they’ll get the point. Someday they’ll understand. Feminism is not about putting men down. It’s about equality. And it’s hard to see that for those who grew up thinking they were a bit more equal than others.