I can't unsee what I've seen or unread what I've read and I just feel angry

[TentativeFeminist]

I've only just starting really learning about feminism and all the stuff in life that is influenced by being a woman. I am glad I'm not blind to it anymore but at the same time I feel sort of like it's ruined certain parts of my life and also I feel so angry at everything. Does anyone else feel like this? I don't know how to deal with these feelings really.

For example, I can't sit and enjoy a film anymore because all I can see are the stereotypes or the ways women are just props for the male characters. I can't listen to a lot of music I used to enjoy because of the lyrics. I feel angry at myself for some of the TV shows I previously enjoyed (like "The Simple Life" with Paris Hilton) and I feel sad for younger me for buying into all that stuff even though I know it wasn't particularly my fault.

It's making me feel sort of sad about being a woman too. I'm annoyed that having a vagina automatically makes me second class in lots of ways. It frustrates me that something I can't control or hide on a day to day basic has been influencing my life from day dot and will for the rest of it. It makes me angry that my daughter may have all this to come.

Sorry if this sounds weird. It's just all so new to me and I don't know how to stop feeling so mad and to control this rage so it doesn't damage my life. Already I feel like it's changing my perspective of men and making me think "how could I ever be with a man again?".

My head feels like mush :(

Op, I feel exactly like you and have kind of made a semi-conscious choice to need read much feminist literature - FWR and some feminists blog are well enough to keep me enraged with the world as I find it.

Love the concept of The Patriarchy being like The Matrix!

phaedra
Not nicely put, but I'm not constantly confronted by how crap it is to be a woman as I don't watch crap TV, don't read magazines, or have them in the house, I listen to Radio 4 (my feminist ire was regularly aroused when I used to drive the dcs to school with Chris Moyles).
But that lack of confrontation has probably made me a lazy feminist. Use your anger!

The thing I'm constantly noticing (once I started I couldn't stop) was 'ownership' if that's the right word? Male characters in tv and film speaking to other males about whether they are interested in a female character like its solely their decisions who the female (character) should be with

This

I get so fucking angry. 'Shes mine' NO SHE FUCKING ISNT. SHES HERS FFS'

Seriously I'm not confronted either by that sort of crap and for precisely the same reasons.

Why complain that a show featuring Paris Hilton is crap- what else would one expect?

There are many, many artists of integrity, men and women, making interesting and thoughtful music. If one "can't listen to a lot of music I used to enjoy because of the lyrics" there's a very easy remedy.

I hear ya, OP :( I feel like this too. One huge issue I'm facing ATM is that I have three sons, and I'm the only woman in this house. im scared that somehow my feminism won't be strong enough to offset the huge sexism of the outside world, and my sons will end up being horrible adult men, who don't ask for consent, don't listen, don't talk to women as human beings. Men who accept the media sell that the voices of old white men matter more than anyone else's, because they will be old white men one day. I've largely stopped engaging with popular culture but my sons will engage, and then I will have to find a way to encourage them to critique what they see and hear every day, even though the messages tell them that people like them are best. Why should they listen to my voice, when the message is so overwhelming?

I do have the advantage of DH's unstinting support - he was reared by a single mum and is definitely feminist, as well as being a great dad. But he can turn off the analysis in order to, for example, enjoy a film where one female character plays second fiddle to a bunch of men, and I can't, and I end up reading a book instead, worrying about whether my sons will accept or even justify covert sexism.

I try not to get down about it but it is hard. Most of the friends that I see daily haven't clicked into this so I have no one to talk to about it. Hate seeing my 8 year old clocking the naked vacant models on the front of "newspapers". Recently voiced that I wanted my dds to go to the local girls school rather than co ed as there was a lot of low level sexual harassment at my co ed comp and people thought I was unreasonable.

Idly scrolled down the partners in the local top solicitors firm. 30 men 2 women. Yet when we all trained it was 50/50. Dhs male boss top partner is a total knobber that I trained with why has he made it but the equivalent women haven't?

I get down about it too.

One thing that helps me is thinking about the gains that have been made in my lifetime (just turned 40).

Examples:
When I left school, it had just become illegal for husbands to rape their wives. Now pretty much anyone would concede rape in marriage is at least possible.
My dad rarely changed nappies and it was considered amazingly 'good' of him, as most other men just wouldn't. In my generation I know only one guy who doesn't do his share of nappies and even his friends think that's pretty dickish.
We've had women in three of the four main jobs in Government (PM, Foreign Secretary, Home Sec, but not Chancellor).
Lots more female heads of state around the world, MPs, etc. I know it's starting from a very low base, but as social changes go, it's been a short time.
We have legislation aimed to enable equality, women can't be legally fired for getting pregnant or married, there is paid maternity leave, men in many organisations are expected to take their paternity leave (a concept that would have been unheard of when I was at school)
Domestic violence was considered a shame and a private matter. Stalking and harassment were legal. Sexual abuse was an urban myth. Kids expected to be groped by teachers and for male teachers to go out with sixth formers. Obviously it's not great now but was all so much worse.

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is quite a good antidote to Flatland (which is, in my opinion, one of those handy references for what men think of women).

I've seen the OP's realisation referred to as 'the red pill' and that seems appropriate. 5 years on, I can now watch normal average TV shows again now and again but tbh there's so much popular culture I do enjoy as a feminist that I'm pretty happy to avoid it, still.
It takes a bit of effort but there's films, artists, stand-up comedians, authors etc etc.

I'd feel weird knowing what I know and not 'doing stuff' so I do a lot of stuff. It doesn't have to be super-scary and you don't have to risk arrest or anything. A craftivism group or book group in a pub or something's a nice easy start.

lovecat that cartoon is brilliant and this is a great thread - thanks OP.

Just un-lurking to say this is absolutely where I am at a lot of the time, and I find this board a bit of a haven. I don't recognise a lot of the criticism in the FWR knocking recently, and can get into advanced despair at the stuff in the sexist toy type threads. Thank heavens for all of you, helping me articulate my emotions and make sense of my rage.

I saw a van today for a food company, the graphic advertising the company on the side of this van was a woman's bum, literally just the bum, with her hand holding an apple near it in a vaguely seductive manner.

I'm in Germany and find a lot of imagery, especially in adverts very sexually suggestive and objectifying, but this just seemed bizarre! It was a total WTF, how far has this gone, "sexy woman" = attractive company to use, but really? Why would you use an arse to advertise your food company?! It doesn't seem like the most hygienic connection?

Whenever I go home to Germany to visit (2-3x/year) it strikes me that many things are much more overtly 'sexist' while at the same time many things are less so compared to the UK .
That van sounds like it taps into a kind of 'Benny Hill' aesthetic: you know, both woman's arse and shiny apple all round and firm and inviting you to bite in to them… or summat . It's the kind of thing that many of my older male relatives would find 'funny'. The association between 'dirty bottom' and 'food' would simply not be made.

Otoh, children are 'allowed' much more of a childhood. There has been a creep of pink and blue toy gendering in the last 10 years or so, but IMO it is still less pernicious than here. There seems to be a little less of sexualisation of v young kids going on - just my impression.
Having said that, I have a 7 yo niece who is the pinkest of pink princesses with sparkles on top that anybody has ever seen, so what do I know

I totally agree with you Pacific. That's exactly my interpretation too.

And you're right - the picture didn't have any connotations of "eww germs!" but it was just when I thought about it, I thought - weird. Why would you advertise food with a picture of a bum. My initial reaction was just "wow, that's sexist!"

It is very hard when you love music. So many of my favourite bands and songs are riddled with misogyny. I adore Lou Reed, the Velvet Underground and the Stones and Zydeco music but they ain't women friendly.

I totally understand where you are coming from. I can't help but point out little sexist things I notice to my boyfriend. He ultimately agrees with me, but also thinks that sometimes I 'read to much into things'.
The latest one for me - I've just discovered London Xfm on my digital radio. On the face of it it's great. I listen in the morning and the playlist sounds almost like my own music collection. I then suddenly realised the other day that all the artists they play are male. Not even some...ALL. Now I only listen for about an hour in the morning, but still - in that whole time I have never heard them play anything from by a female artist. It's starting to annoy me so much I can't enjoy the radio show anymore. (which is crazy because I still like the music they play).

Just wanted to pop my head in and say I can identify with everything you have said, OP. I feel pretty annoyed that I (and other women) have been born/treated as the lesser sex in society.

With regard to films, so much of the time it seems the default for a character is male, even the background characters which could easily be female. Then there is a token female or two, ignoring the fact that women are 50% of the population, not the tiny proportion you see on screen. This really irks me.

This board is definitely a haven for me, when I see an issue in the news there is usually a thread on here which i can read and my anger subsides a little knowing others are feeling the same way.