How Feminists Saved Me from a Backward Society

When I was young, I never gave gender segregation a thought my sister and I just assumed we were equals and that was that. What one of us did, the other did as well. My sister never wore dresses, she hated them and wanted nothing to do with them so basically there was no segregation in our home. My father was an abusive sexist man but he never bothered to pursue some sexist agenda with his kids. He just assumed the world ticked according to his view of it . My mother, while basically a good person, was conservative in her views as well.

However, luckily, she seemed to also assume the world ticked according to her view of it and didn't bother to indoctrinate us either. After all, sexism and gender segregation were natural laws, her children didn't need much teaching in regard to what would come naturally to them. Talk about dodging a bullet! Oh there was a time when they went out and bought my sister this bubble bathe stuff and didn't get me any thing at all. I was naturally hurt and confused but apparently, from what I gathered by their clumsy attempt at an explanation this had something to do with her being a girl and she had to learn something or other. I was a 6 year old kid, having never learned bigotry, I hadn't a sexist bone in my tiny body I remember being worried and scared for my sister with regards to what they were trying to do to her as well as confused as to what the whole thing meant. It all blew over, but my parents were very stern about it at the time. Of course my father used to talk about " women's libers" and spew sexist hate speech but I was too small to even take in what he was saying. It was just like when he talked about "nig---s" so I ignored it as another painful thing you had to endure in life. It was awful to listen to, but what could I do? At some point even a small child can tell when some one has something wrong with them and I had long since lost all respect for my father so what did it mater what he said?

As I got older, I began to understand where my father was coming from when he talked about "nig----s" and "women's libers" I heard that making love to a black woman would be like "loving on an ape" and where a woman's place was. I heard all about "Be a man" that I was the bread winner and I was not to cry, no mater what. I was to step right out in front of a moving freight train if that's what it took to get things done. My clothing was to be simple and bland, my hair was to be chopped and mutilated into a military cut never to grow down over my ears, period. I was not supposed to be attractive I was supposed to be tough and fight my way through. I was to learn to kill animals for food to slit there throats bleed and butcher them. (Here my tough guy father seems to have run out of machismo, as he pretty much was too big a sissy to even butcher a fish with out it turning his stomach so I was spared a lot of that dirty work.) At any rate it's a pretty bleak picture as you can imagine.

Now a days, things are quite different for me. I get to dress up, you will never find me in just jeans and a t shirt (unless it has some militant remark on it about "this is what a feminist looks like" or something) I wear my hair in different styles and am happy to fuss over it with hair spray , conditioner ,and Garnier Fructis. I don't seem to be able to cry very well though for some reason, It feels like the tears are stuck or a breaker is tripped and I can't get any power to the circuit ,if that makes any sense. Even when my mother died I couldn't seem to cry like a normal person. I just sort of sit there and tears ooze out of my eyes. I can only cry over certain things like when I was working on a ranch and a black man came to buy hay. Two of the other hands threw bales with a missing strings on his trailer to as they would "bust open and get rid of the ni---r" That seemed to do it , but I made it with just glossy eyes and a runny nose that could have been hay fever for all any one knew. It's tough, when you really want to just cry and get it out of your system but all you can do is make little noises and drip fluid from your eyes. I wonder what all that inside of me is doing to me. I wonder if being threatened with violence for crying might have done something to me.
However, for the most part, I live a normal life, freed from the lies and macho biggotry that was forced on me in my child hood . Todays world is a different place

The feminist movement has thrown off a lot of the sexist bigotry from women. Women now stand up for them selves, they join the military, and even fight and die in battles. Men see this and realize that women aren't helpless. The same women that fight also know how to dress up in nice clothes, fix their hair and even cry so what's wrong with it? Smart, modern, feminist women are offended by a man holding the door for them because they see it for what it is, treating them like children. Smart , modern men see this and realize it's true. Gender roles degrade women and men both by putting our gender above our minds, our sentience. Gender roles aren't cool, or chivalrous, or romantic they, stink! By watching women evolve socially and claim their rights and dignity, men have come to realize that we were fooling our selves all along. Women can take care of them selves ,the old ways were wrong and ruined men's lives as surly as they ruined women's lives. Modern men are putting away all the machismo and thugery and basically saying "this is a lie, we don't have to live like this" They are taking the time to take care of their skin, their hair, toning there body's in gyms until they look like underwear models, watching what they eat , wearing nice clothes. Some men are even experimenting with make up and nail polish like there brothers in ancient Egypt. Along with this, comes mental hygene as well like learning to express feelings and taking care of your attitudes and inclinations where others are concerned, making your self socially presentable. If all goes well, soon men will stop looking at the world from the veiw point of a soldier facing an enemy. Men will be able to relax and not wory about being attacked from every side. Each man will began to see the world , according to his own individual taste. Freed from the violent macho culture that enslaves and twists us into monsters, men will form a deeper and more complex world view. This will give rise to a new and improved breed of man, more sophisticated, and articulate and adapted to live in the star trek like world that is the 21st century and we owe all this to the rise of the feminist movement.