I Have Internalized Misogyny
And you do, too
Growing up female means putting up with a lot of bullshit. You’re told* from a very young age that your only worth is your looks, and even then, it’s not for yourself; it’s for men. You’re put on a weird pedestal where any kind of behaviour outside your given parameters is punished. You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
Because of this, at a young age I decided to reject these expectations.
It took me a long time to realize that by explicitly rejecting everything deemed “female”, I was actually perpetuating misogyny.
The central tenet of feminism — true feminism — is gender equality. This can often get warped due to people’s own experiences and prejudices, but the fact remains that people should not be held to different standards due to their gender.
And yet, it seems that women are consistently held to an impossible standard.
We’re meant to be perfect: perfectly presented, perfectly mannered, perfectly behaved. Of course, the fact that “perfect” is subjective is also relevant here; even the most perfect of women are going to be criticized.
So often, especially in the internet age, people feel the need to comment on a woman’s lifestyle. Women do this to other women — and that’s purely because they were…
