One of my dearest friends messaged me the
other day on fb, pointing me to a status she’d posted about sometimes feeling
‘bulldozed by men’ – ‘getting frustrated for not being more ‘masculine’' - and asked for my opinion.
In her reply to my response, considered but
scrawled and typo-ridden as I rode to work on the bus – she thanked me for ‘articulating the historical and social
context of feminism’ in a way she ‘struggles to'.
My
response outlined how if we allow ourselves to change our instinctual reactions
to situations based on a gender norm or a environmental push – then we will
achieve less than if we push forward (yes push) but with our own agenda and
moral code.
I
have quite a considered opinion (yes, OPINION,) on what feminism is to me and
what it means to be a woman smashing it – earning my own cash and choosing how
I earn. Much of that is down to my personality – and a certain bullishness that
I have now learnt not to apologise for. My bullishness is not aggressive but is
unapologetic problem solving, if there was a problem, yo, I'll solve it, check
out the hook while my DJ revolves it. Alongside this, I studied literary
theory and am a wild over-thinker so I apply a lot of my own pop psychology and
slip into that what I have learned from watching people, and reading about
them. I have confidence in my own
thoughts and abilities that if they feel right to me, I roll with them – and
you know what? That is traditionally the man’s right – to presume that how he
feels is how he can act. That is his right
while the women check themselves and slot in alongside.
Ironically,
one of the reasons I have been able to get to this place – and see things
clearly for myself – is as I can be forthright in the workplace. When
emotionally, in relationships with boyfriends, friends, in the dating scene,
with my family I can turn to useless, frustrated angry mush. If I allow myself
to apply a little of ‘work me’ to a emotional situation, Mary Poppins style,
spick spock, no nonsense, no emotion, no gossip, because I’m tired, unwell or
just plain exhausted from fireworking energy 24/7 – I can get in trouble. Sometimes
the response to my no-nonsense is presumed disinterest or my frustration is
seen as unwarranted aggression.
I
think the key thing I wanted to say to PSB – producer, business person, dancer,
marketer, digital magician, a fiercely intelligent, beautiful, warm, funny,
dirty, eyelashed-legend – was that whatever our background, reading, social and
political awareness and knowledge of feminism or lack there of – as women full
stop, we will have to keep being who we want to be and are. And whilst thanking
all those that have helped us get to a point where our response is more likely
to be rolling our eyes and gasping in frustration; than crying in the toilet at
a hand thrust up our skirt – we still have a right to be frustrated and a right
to express that whenever the fudge we like.
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