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I think i had an unusually adventurous and fairly gender neutral upbringing

and I feel lucky about that; it made me who I am today! But as an adult woman I can definitely relate and I imagine what it would be like to feel that sense of freedom from being perceived as a woman and the societal expectations that come with that. Sylvia Plath said it best in her journals: “Yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars—to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording—all this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...” I do think though that it’s fruitless to fixate on these things, imagining the grass to be greener on the other side and essentially wishing you could have grown up and lived as another person, because 1 it’s not possible 2 the life you imagine has so many downsides to it too that you can’t even imagine not having experienced itself and 3 if you were a different person then the You you are now wouldn’t exist, and that would be a shame! I also think men are having a tough time now and many of them are probably just as neurotic, inhibited, and fearful as women. Obviously people are free to reject these notions and live life as whoever they want, and I respect and appreciate those who choose to do this, but I’m not interested in doing that for myself. Instead, I challenge the boundaries of what it means to be a woman in the ways that I can, which feels like the right choice for me!

@taterhole

Jun 28, 2024

5

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The performance of boyhood

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

@addycyl

Jun 28, 2024

2

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expressing yourself as a woman

Not sure if this is too niche, but the other day I met with my professor and we talked about how women tend to express themselves hesitantly, softly. Men tend to be assertive, often bordering on arrogant, when they write. I mean, that’s probably cause women - fem people - have traditionally been socialized in a certain passive manner. Makes me sad sometimes. But not always.

@mistarich03

Feb 14, 2025

Top Recs from @zenlikeme

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Honoring your teachers

“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say ‘It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.” — Fred Rogers

@zenlikeme

4d ago

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Getting recruited into an mlm in the peanut butter aisle of The whole foods

The guy got my attention with, “Hey, I like your shoes.” Just like that, he had me. We talked about where I bought the shoes and how I used to work in the shoe industry. He used to work in the beer industry but had recently become independently wealthy because of an investment opportunity he started with a few of his friends. ”You get to be your own boss,” he told me. Your boot could be on your own neck. We’re back to the topic of shoes. He told me it’s a small investment to get started but things are really taking off and I could get in on the ground floor. I could quit my job. Work for myself. Had I ever considered doing something like that? “No,” I said with a shrug. I walked away with my jar of peanut butter. I can’t remember if it was creamy or crunchy. Probably crunchy. Nice guy!

@zenlikeme

Feb 25, 2025

7

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Deleting Instagram

I haven’t been on Twitter for years and hardly touch FB, but I had been an active user on Instagram since 2012. I really like taking and sharing photos, and that had always been a fun place to do it. No more. With the changes the content moderation changes they’re making, leaving LGBTQ+ folks vulnerable to be targeted; their rolling back of DEI programs; their willing participation in far-right rhetoric and politics; it’s all too much and I’m out. As if Meta’s platform hadn’t already been increasingly enshittified, this was the final straw to announce how much worse it will get. And you know what? It feels freeing. Better to leave it behind and find new platforms to connect with people.

@zenlikeme

Jan 22, 2025

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