I am sure this is no shocking revelation to anyone, but I think that we (and by we I mean people in the world) are most often discouraged from revealing our true feelings. In fact, in many instances, if someone reveals his or her true feelings, that person is made to feel crazy (here is a hilarious Onion article about that very phenomenon). As a woman, I feel this happens more to women than it does to men, but a man might have a different story (and if you are a man reading this, please weigh in). I am sure we have all read a thousand articles proving that if a woman shows her true feelings she is either weak (if she cries at all - see Hillary Clinton) or a bitch (if she gets angry), and we have all probably felt societal pressure to keep our feelings and opinons to ourselves.
Anyway, all of this pressure to keep our true thoughts and feelings bottled up at the risk of seeming insane has got to stop. I don't know about you, but I am tired of playing it cool all of the time and pretending that I don't care about anything when the truth is, I DO care, about A LOT of things. Now, I know that this one blog post is not going to change all of us. I know we aren't going to start tomorrow telling our bosses or professors exactly how we feel about them, or telling every person we sleep with exactly how upset we were when they didn't call us back, or stopping people on the bus to tell them that we think their sexist jokes are inappropriate, etc. That is obviously too much to ask for from just one blog post.
I do think, however, that we can use this blog post as a way to get some of these thoughts and feelings off of our chests, and make others around us feel a little bit less crazy in the process. So please take a second to think about an opinion or feeling you have that you've felt like you couldn't come clean with, for whatever reason. Do it for feminists everywhere, and maybe we can slowly start to reverse this crazy tide! I will start:
- I hate the phrase "you guys", but I can't seem to stop myself from using it and I can't think of a viable alternative, so I never say anything when people use it around me, even when I am in a group of all females.
- I spend copious amounts of time googling people who I haven't even talked to in years, just to see if I can spy on what they are up to. I also wonder all the time if people ever do this to me, and what they think of the results if they do.
- If I ever have a dream in which I am wearing a particular outfit, I try as hard as I can to replicate that outfit upon waking, just in case the dream was trying to tell me something.
- I played out a whole scenario in my head on my bike ride home today in which I was wrongfully accused of poisoning the dog of a boy I had sex with, and I had to defend myself while at the same time being so charming and obviously innocent that he profusely apologized and decided he liked me again.
- I wish I was more interested in politics because I know they are important, but sometimes (okay, most of the time) I get bored reading about them and switch to reading about celebrity fashion instead.
Those are just a few to get you started. I would love to hear from everyone! If this takes off, maybe confessions can be a more regular feature on the blog, a place where we can all tell everyone what we're really thinking without being made to seem insane. Imagine that.
7 comments:
I love UFC fights even though the fighters are violent, ego-maniacs that are probably on steroids. Not to mention, they have girls in their underwear waltzing around blowing kisses to the camera. As a feminist, this is disgusting, but for some reason, I can't stop watching.
I use plastic silverware because I don't have a dishwasher and hand washing forks is enough to ruin my whole day. I hate it. As someone who cares about the environment, I feel that this is inexcusable, but again, I just can't bring myself to stop. It's too convenient.
And, when I have dreams about people being mean to me, I am mad at them in real life for at least a day. I can't help it.
I your confessions! Maybe I will put some up on my blog this week and copy you.
That's supposed to say "I *like* your confessions"....
Thanks for your comments, Lyndsay and Joy! Hopefully others will follow suit.
I am so happy to see you blogging again! I will give you "tough love" pep talks more often.
Here's a confession for your collection: I intermittently join online dating sites. I am usually able to pass it off as research for work, but sometimes it is just blind hope.
Of course, a few minutes on any of those sites returns my sight & I delete my profiles.
Re. "guys"... While I, too, am guilty of using this too-easy, non-gender-neutral term, I have always the word "folks" to be an appropriate alternative. I may be able to pull it off better than the Yankees and West Coasters who surround me, of course, being the genteel Southern gent I am.
My confession: Though I try to be a good, progressive, male feminist, I will admit that I had to do a lot of soul searching before hyphenating my name. Just seemed so darn emasculating. But I decided it was put up or shut up time.
I go on Craigs List Missed Connections and expect to see something about me. Like, I guess my hair could have looked red in that light, and I DID go to a Starbucks last week, no dog though. Hmm some stranger is just falling madly in love with me wherever I am?
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