i actually hope in the future to have daughters, so reading this perspective has been a nice insight into how autonomy plays a massive role into their upbringing :)
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i really also think about how much boys are taught ways to perform masculinity & how it is legitimised through tangible things like building a career etc but with women i find that from a young age our identity, behaviours, & thoughts are always spoken about in relation to other people/things — gender roles within the family, how we’re perceived by men, our friendships with other women, our relationships with material things etc etc — and this shows up in the labels that women are often given too! so and so is someone’s daughter, girlfriend, wife, mother etc etc. i envy the freedom of boyhood so much, the freedom to just be (this is not to discount the toxicity of traditional masculinity, i just think that boys are still afforded more “play” and therefore have more opportunities to develop their sense of self).
maybe i am also biased because of how i’ve grown up & whatnot but i never really understood what it meant to quote unquote be a woman or perform femininity. i only saw this modelled within my nurturing friendships with women as i’ve gotten older but when i was younger, in church it was always “ok well don’t do this or that because x y z will happen to men if you do” or within my extended family it was often “are you seeing anyone? when are you having kids”. damn what happened to asking about how i’m doing or what my dreams are!!!
long rant sorry !! but that’s my long winded way of saying “i feel you” haha
Jun 28, 2024
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tension between wanting a daughter and knowing what being a woman in this world feels like
Oct 18, 2024
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i cannot relate to women who miss their girlhood. when they felt carefree, happy. for me adulthood has been the first time i've experienced feeling carefree and happy. i work an 8:30-5:30 job and I pay my rent and I buy groceries and I take the bus and this is the happiest and safest and least stressed i've ever been. girlhood was awkward and uncomfortable. restrictive and quiet. sexualized. I didn't own my body, my space, my time. i was scared of my dad, i just wanted my mom to understand me. i didn't feel pretty and boys were mean. girls too. womanhood has been freeing and healing. I wear what i want, i eat what I want. my home is so safe, my body is too. i wish i could miss girlhood. but I can't, so I give my adult woman self the joy and safety and pink bedroom walls and stuffed animals and girly dresses she never had as a child. i give myself comfort. i listen to and I believe myself. i hold my inner little girl and tell her she is so beautiful and so loved. i try to give my adult woman self the girlhood i didn't have
May 13, 2024
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Jun 19, 2024