I'm so angry that I have to be a feminist.

[QueenStromba]

Why can't I just be a person? I feel like a person but I'm not a person because I'm a woman. Men can just be people but women are less than real people. I've always felt grateful that I don't live in the Middle East where I couldn't drive a car or go out on my own but the scales have fallen from my eyes and I see now that I am part of the underclass because I have a vagina. I tried to tell myself that it didn't matter but I was just kidding myself. I have a vagina and that makes me less important than if I had a penis even in 21st century Britain. I can't even imagine how bad women in other countries have it.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

Yes, I agree.

[QueenStromba]

Is there anything we can do Doctrine?

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

I do think the "Pink Brain Blue Brain" stuff is a big problem here. Many people, men and women, believe there are such inherent differences between the sexes that an element of different treatment is "natural".

Of course, 150 years ago, anti-abolitionists in America believed just as fervently in a natural difference between black and white. They might have deplored violence to slaves but not slavery itself.

I do think there's something about it being possible not to encounter a person or many people of a different race or sexuality until you are an older child or young adult versus being born one or the other sex and absorbing things that way every day from birth that makes sexism more difficult to tackle.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

So, for example, a cousin's child made a dubious comment to one of the only non-white children in his infant school. From the sound of it, it was an unfortunate choice of words rather than inherent racism but friend was horrified, school was horrified, parents of other child were horrified, much apologising, explaining to first child why comment was wrong, talks in class why it was wrong etc. And rightly so.

Same friend will happily make comments about boys being more active than girls, girls getting on with their work etc etc. As will probably most of the parents in the school and, ooh, half the teachers at a guess.

[QueenStromba]

It's just so ingrained isn't it? It's so easy to not notice it's going on because it's so normal. The transgender thread in AIBU is what opened my eyes - so many women saying that it's more important for men who think they are women to be treated as women than for women to have safe spaces.

[Sunnydaysablazeinhope]

I was on that thread that's not what any of us said! None of liked sharing our loos but everyone in RL made us. By everyone, men. A third way should have been possible but in a rush to be PC it wasn't. Humph.

[QueenStromba]

Some people did say that Sunny.

[BriarRainbowshimmer]

Me too OP I just want to be normal person, and I want all women to be just normal people. Not oppressed.

What really shocked me recently was how Amnesty had been infiltrated by a brothel owner and now they want to protect pimps and punters instead of women's rights.

[QueenStromba]

That would be fantastic Buffy. Unfortunately women aren't people in the same way men are and that's what I've realised today. It's fucking depressing to have realised that. If you'd asked me yesterday I'd have said I was a person but today I've realised that I'm only a woman.

[soxuhupe]

Feminists are angry? wow I never noticed.

[soxuhupe]

If it's any consolation you do have female privileges:

Breast cancer gets several times more funding than prostate cancer despite the latter killing almost as many people as the former.

You still have the privilege of chivalry- men are expected to pay for meals, men are expected to give up their seats for women, judges are more lenient on female defendants etc

You are at less risk of violence and less risk of being challenged to a fight than a man

Less chance of being homeless/ending up in prison/dying in a workplace accident/dying from suicide

[soxuhupe]

Women and girls are encouraged to express their feelings, seek help when needed and cry (a perfectly healthy natural emotion). From a young age boys are discouraged from expressing any emotion other than aggression and not to cry to seek help when needed (and we wonder why more men commit suicide?).

[BIWI]

I don't expect any man - even my husband - to pay for me or to give up my seat for me.

And as for less risk of violence, how do you factor the risk of rape in there?

Ridiculous post.

[soxuhupe]

"I don't expect any man - even my husband - to pay for me or to give up my seat for me."

Even if you don't there are millions upon millions of women who are more than happy to take advantage of chivalry for their own benefit.

[BertieBotts]

Those aren't female privilege, they are just examples of why sexism also harms men.

And feminists are angry, angry doesn't mean aggressive or anything negative, it just means a feeling that something needs to change and feeling out of control about it.

[soxuhupe]

BIWI how many times have you been assaulted or beaten up by a boy/man? And by assaulted I mean non-sexual as in struck hard with a fist or foot.

[soxuhupe]

"Those aren't female privilege"

They look like privileges to me.

[makeminea6x]

Less risk of violence my arse - have you seen the death rates from domestic violence, which is perpetrated against women far more often than men.

[soxuhupe]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/7995844/Judges-told-be-more-lenient-to-women-criminals.html

UK judges have actually been told to be lenient on defendants who own a vagina.

"I've been pushed over by a man."

I've been beaten up countless times at school, and while I haven't been assaulted since leaving school I've been subject to threats and stalking.

[soxuhupe]

And why didn't I tell a teacher? That's because all they would say is "boys will be boys". They just weren't interested.