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nightunderthesilversky · 3 years

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I cannot stop thinking about the paragraph about male fantasies by Margaret Atwood:

“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”

Because I relate to this so much. I’m sure many women do.

But even though I know I am sitting with a man inside my head watching me, made up of all the men I always think (or know) are watching me, I can’t find it in myself to act contrary to what comes natural to me now. Is this secondary skin so burnt into me it has become second nature now? I cannot live my entire life going against instinct on principle, refuting my individual existence because it was created by someone else. As I shed off more and more of this costume I’ve had to don, I will become more me than I ever have been; but I will not abandon the scared, little, survival-concerned part of myself that felt it was necessary to hide in the first place.

I hate being carved by someone else, but how will I understand who I am underneath all the violence if I don’t move around in this body?

I am not saying you have to be feminine to be feminist. This post in itself is not about feminism as a movement at all. It’s about what it means to myself, individually, and I know that individual actions impact an entire group too, but I try my hardest to be as intersectionally feminist I can in other aspects. That includes me trying to unlearn all internalised misogyny I have been taught. But this does not mean that every bit of femininity in me has been forcefully or manipulatively drilled into my skull. Some of it is in my very own bones, untarnished earth somewhere sacrosanct till it can be let out and allowed to breathe. Just like men and non-binary people and AFAB people can have femininity in them, I can too. This does not make them a woman any more than it makes me a mere puppet. I admit I am a part of this play, as most of us are, but I am also trying to loosen my strings. This does not mean my character does not exist outside of the patriarchy.

EDIT: PEOPLE! Internet people educated me on feminist theories and I’ve added my additional take on this to a reblog. Please see that! I think it’ll help you explore this topic more. MUAH

EDIT no.2 since people keep liking/reblogging this: Please reblog the one which I have reblogged with things I’ve learned from this. Don’t reblog this. I get how you feel but stop spreading this narrative like I did; just go and take a look at the reblog.

#on choice feminism #feminism #besties im not tagging this with feminism because its feminist literature #i welcome any kind discourse #kind is different from nice #you can be critical and yet kind #on intersectional feminism #margaret atwood #male fantasies #womanhot #how to untie myself from this swaddle i have been born into?#i cant #tumblr tagged it was womanhot #i meant womanhood #femininity #mary oliver #essay #discussion #open to learning so please educate me if you want to #not asking for free labour u can also just ignore it #i am actively trying to dissect and deconstruct the performance aspect of being so

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