I am like the other girls.
Why women & femme-centric relationships are essential for survival.
Any time I think back to pivotal moments which were either traumatic or life-changing in some way, I am reminded at how crucial my relationships were with my female-identifying friends and family.
All too often the dominant social narratives of women-centric relationships focus on various myths of woman vs woman competitiveness and cattiness. Teenagers and adult women are thought to constantly be vying for male affection at the detriment of themselves, their professions and friendships with other women.
Can you remember ever feeling like you had to impress a cisgender hetero (cishet) man or boy by saying that you weren’t like the other girls? That you were “drama-free” and not “too needy”? I certainly can. I can remember that the moment those words slipped out of my mouth, I knew I was lying. I was like the other girls and I liked being one of them.
Patriarchal dominance calls for the fracturing of woman and femme-centric relationships and solidarity. The more dissent there is amongst women, the more men can profit off our lack of empowerment. We become more attached to the false-safety men say they can offer us when that is in fact the biggest lie of all time. Believe me when I say that cishet men will say and do anything to isolate women from others in order to exploit us and our labor.
Young women are raised believing that their relationships and proximity to men is what defines us as being human. We are raised and socialized to be mothers, daughters, nieces, girlfriends or wives. We need to nurture, bear children, maintain families, fuck our husbands (in heterosexual relationships), go to our jobs, be non-assertive in to our male colleagues, provide food, emotional labor to anyone who requests it, look beautiful (not too beautiful), be available (not too desperate) and constantly be better than other women.
Do you know how exhausting this is? Do you know what a waste of time this is? Do you know why we’re taught to do this? Because it distracts us from what we really should being doing: prioritizing ourselves, our pleasure and our femme friends and friendships.
Recently my mother in law told me that others are surprised at our deep affection and friendship to each other. The common narrative of mothers being strangely territorial over their sons plays out into an intense competition between two women vying over a man’s singular attention.
The narratives of pitting women against each other are all too common, simply take a look at any tabloid headline. According to patriarchal, mainstream ideologies, women can only succeed if they are tearing down another woman for that success. These narratives are the dominant ones because men don’t really understand our dynamics and how we achieve our success. They only know how they achieve greatness through destruction, greed, theft, oppression and exploitation. Their imagination can’t even conceive how anything can be done through femme-centric traits so they mirror the worst of masculinity and try to make us believe that it is in fact the worst of femininity.
After years of undoing traumatic amounts of internalized misogyny, I’m became aware of how we demonize feminine qualities and label them as being weak, bad or destructive. In reality the worst, most destructive and weakest traits are in fact male-centric and are also known as toxic masculinity.
What you see as being high-maintenance, I recognize as knowing my value and not lowering my standards to men who want me to accept their lack of emotional literacy and self-centered need for dominance. What you see as bitchy, I see as self-preservation. Catty? That’s what you call us when we demand accountability for mistakes or actions. Drama queens? Think of this as being an effective way of gaslighting our experiences and emotions. Our reactions to abuse are the right ones, but we’ve been told to endure such things because cis men need the room to “grow” and exert their masculinity, even to the detriment of our very lives.
These patterns of behavior from cishet men aren’t always done with a full-level of understanding while they’re being exercised. These behaviors are systemic and engrained into the social fabric of our lives. Sometimes we do or say these things without fully understanding the oppressive structure behind them so it helps to look at these things as patterns rather than individual behaviors.
It is easier to create social change when we understand how groups of us are being marginalized, exploited and oppressed. Only then can we apply these theories to our lives and hold patriarchy and individual men responsible.
My healthiest relationships have always been with women and femmes. My grandmother established a solid bond with me growing up, she was my biggest supporter and instilled in me the confidence I needed to flourish and grow. My best friends through school were essential to me understanding the respectful and empathetic way in which we interact. We had our spaces where we nurtured each other and our dreams. As a survivor or emotional abuse and sexual trauma, my relationships with women brought me back from the edge of destruction.
Women supporting women is a way of life, a healing from the systems of oppression. The communities we have created for each other have kept us safe from cishet male-dominated spheres, all too often this is something men feel threatened by, hence the mocking of safe spaces and trigger warnings.
Not only do cishet men mock heterosexual and queer women’s relationships, but they sexualize them or impose their gaze in order to feel like they are regaining some sense of control by grasping onto the narratives which harden their dicks and reduce women’s friendships to something they can be voyeurs of and feel comforted by.
In my late teens, when I would tell men I was leaving to sleep over at my best friend’s home and not their seedy bachelor pads, they would immediately request an invitation to be a part of our “lesbian snuggles and scissor party” or watch us have nude pillow fights. Cishet men’s imaginations are limited by their lack of respect and understanding of women and femmes. The idea of our relationships only being beneficial if they are hyper-sexualized is pervasive and we see it repeated within films and books. The idea of non-sexual intimacy is an idea many cishet men struggle with.
From my personal experience, I have noticed that men are envious at our capacity to bond and connect with each other emotionally so rather than express this in a way that may be productive, our bonds as women are mocked or lied about. Our vulnerability amongst each other is a strength which allows us to have healthier, more fulfilled lives, we shouldn’t ever forget to cherish ourselves and each other because it is a valid form of resistance and care.
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