Thread by @chick_in_kiev

one of the things i simply know to be true at this point is that the vast majority of men simply do not consider women to be full human beings -- capable of the same vast range of emotions and thoughts & self-conceptions, flawed, weird, unique, whole

i would like it not to be true, but it is; most men view women as members of a separate, inscrutable & ultimately inferior species, even if they would never say so (although some do); regardless, women, for most men, are beyond the barrier of empathetic imagination

in college a dear friend said he simply did not read books with female protagonists because he could not identify with them

we are still dear friends and i love him still but i have never -- will never -- forget that, because it revealed so much all at once

i would wager to say that most men could imagine themselves on the moon far more readily than they could imagine themselves in a female body

perhaps this is part of the reason M-to-F trans folk face such deep hostility & violence: better the barren wastes of space than womanhood

& thus many inherent qualities are projected onto women simply by means of being women: competence & organizational ability (which i do not possess); the ability to calm & mediate situations; and generally a kind of innate virtue that is faintly inhuman

and easily tarnished

i would so gladly give up these inherent "female virtues" simply to be allowed to be human instead

not a wayward sperm-vessel whose body must be controlled by law
not a man's redemption or muse
not a cock repellent or BBW

just a person
as vain and strange as you

not a brood mare
not a spinster who's forsaken her biological imperatives
not a helpmeet
not a termagant

not a complement, a full being, tired sometimes, angry sometimes, sad sometimes, not for inscrutable feminine reasons but simply human ones

and please note
how carefully
i said
"most" men
to spare
your
feelings

because you would like to believe
that you are different