@OhHolyJesus
I will do better
No need for that, just be yourself. I sense you don't get much of a chance to truly do this elsewhere. Maybe I'm wrong, I hope I am, otherwise the constant devotion to "do better, be better" must be exhausting.
Relax, be yourself. That will do just fine.
Also seconding or thirding, or whatever it is, this.
It’s heartbreaking to think young women like you have been indoctrinated in this belief system that tells you you’re wrong in so many ways. And then tells you that this is feminism!!!
We got indoctrinated with all kinds of bullshit too, and a crucial part of feminism is unpicking the toxic, misogynistic messages you received as a girl/young woman and reclaiming your own intrinsic worth, your own humanity. They used to call it consciousness raising back in the 70’s/80’s.
But the people or forces giving us those messages then were more readily identifiable as the “enemy”: as the forces of oppressive conservatism, sexist men, docile, male-prioritising women, big business, etc. We were the vanguard fighting against that. We were progress. There was a kind of clarity to it. The boss who tried to feel you up was clearly one of Them and the woman friends you got drunk and went on rallies and demo’s with were clearly part of Us.
Now though… the old reactionary forces of woman-blaming, of misogyny, of making female rights and needs subordinate to male desires - those forces are all dressed up as progress now. They tell you they’re the Us you should want to be part of, even while shitting on you and treating you as badly as some men have always treated women, behaving totally like Them.
I think it must be so hard for young women to see clearly with all the gaslighting, all the reversals, all the appeals to your female socialisation dressed up as appeals to your desire to be a Good Human Being. And the pressure on you to be pure! It really is like a religious cult. It seems like you’re guilty by default of Original Sin and have to wash yourself clean in the waters of self abnegation. Constantly checking your privilege and your thinking, to head off any spark of defiance. It must be exhausting.
What you said here, We can be led to feel that our misunderstanding or understanding whichever way you want to look at it is incorrect sometimes, made me think of the activities of the Red Guard - the youth movement during China’s cultural revolution. Which again was the forces of oppression and inhumanity dressed up as “progress”.
I hope you find something better than that here, or if not here, then elsewhere. Because you certainly deserve better than being a handmaiden for a misogynistic male rights movement that would see you sublimate yourself, and your own (and other women’s) needs, to benefit people who already have more power than you.