From: The Sisterhood Of Were Tired Of This Shit

[kpete]

Dear Men, This Is Why We’re Tired

..............

It’s the drip drip of everyday sexism that is more on time than the trains and more relentless than Harvey Weinstein in a bath robe.

There’s nothing more paradoxically mundane and infuriating than someone who thinks he’s clever saying and doing the same thing you’ve been hearing since you were 3 or 8 or 16.

And it’s the guilt. The guilt for being there. For laughing. For not leaving sooner. For not fighting hard enough. For not actually biting his lip even though we were this close. And the guilt we find ourselves accepting from the men who take from us. Don’t embarrass me. C’mon, I’ve been so nice to you. Guilt because we’re conditioned to carry emotional labor for others and our inclination to people please supersedes our safety for a few minutes, and then more guilt because we know it’s sick to feel guilty for hurting our abuser’s feelings.

It’s when badass women write about their harassment, their abuse, their rape. The healing and strength you get from reading it. And knowing that every time they write about it there’s a sub-reddit forming around their words to discredit and threaten them. That her unburdening and words of healing will likely just heap more abuse on her own plate.

It’s the exhaustion of not being believed. Of knowing that even the good guys may not believe our experiences until it’s corroborated by at least a dozen other women. Or until Hannibal Buress includes it in his stand up act.

It’s the time we have to spend assuring men that we know they’re not all like this. Again. And feeling equal parts sad and angry that it will take a whole chorus of us to explain it because one woman’s words have never been enough and in these moments his feelings are more important than the shit we’ve lived with and the shit we’re still reeling from. We have to press pause to explain that we know it’s not all men. We have to hold off on what we’re trying to say about abuse and assault and sexism -that’s pretty fucking important by the way- to massage a man’s feelings. Again.

It’s the fact that when the Weinsteins of the world are exposed, we still have to moderate our tone and keep our emotions in check or we’ll be labelled with the female malady of hysteria.

It’s the deafening silence of every man who doesn’t call out another guy for the rape joke, or the office banter about the new girl, or the locker room talk. Because every time you laughed or didn’t call him out or didn’t step in to intervene you became an enabler. Your silence makes you complicit. Do better.

It’s seeing that things don’t change. That these stories echo the stories of your mom getting chased around her desk in 1977. And she couldn’t quit her job because the fridge was already empty and it wasn’t pay day yet so she would survive on cigarettes and adrenaline so you and your sister could eat. It’s seeing that in 40 years the only thing that’s changed is HR has to pretend to care.

It’s the relentless onslaught of dudes who feel compelled to comment on each story of abuse and trauma in unhelpful ways. Who love to muse that women should have spoken up sooner, or women should have prevented it, or women shouldn’t be victims. Who can’t seem to understand that their job is to Listen. Stay silent. Or go after the predators. And with every chin scratch and psuedo-intellectual analysis they are kicking dirt in the face of every woman who has been dealing with this shit since they were 3 or 8 or 16.

Some of the things that happen to us are inconveniences. But because they are so tied up in the big things and sometimes they are hints of the traumas we’ve collected, they register. Because they all live on the same spectrum of abusive behavior they aren’t easily dismissed. What your bro sees as a joke, is our memory of what we’ve experienced or what our friends have whispered to us. Our lives and the onslaught of bullshit we put up with is your punchline. Even the small things take up time and energy. They make us pause and assess. They make us document or take screenshots or vent in private conversations with our girl friends so we can not snap at the next man that crosses our path because we’re tired.

I’m tired of laboring under all of this.

I’m tired of watching women go through it over and over again. I’m tired of the memories that flood my mind every time a story breaks and the visceral reaction when I see men dismiss women’s experiences. I’m tired of trudging through this virulent sludge on the regular, while men act shocked every time they see a woman with dirty shoes.

This is the emotional labor that sticks to me and buries itself into my psyche. The labor that feels like it’s siphoned off by men like Cosby and Ailes and OReilly and Weiner and Weinstein and names you’ve never heard of because this isn’t just a sickness of the rich and famous. This is a sickness of a culture that sees women as commodities. That sees us as punchlines. As unreliable witnesses to our own experiences. It’s the emotional toll of watching men shake their heads but say nothing. It’s the emotional work we have to do to not be bitter or angry or hardened. It’s the multitude of ways we are co-opted by the society that encourages it, enables it and even glorifies it.

Men, if you’ve been wondering why we’re in your face about it, why we have no more tolerance for dismissals and deflections, no more sympathy for your shock or surprise, why we won’t soothe your dismay or feed your ego when our bodies have been slandered, this is why.

Because we’re tired.

Signed,

The Sisterhood Of We’re Tired Of This Shit



MORE.
https://driftingthrough.com/2017/10/15/dear-men-this-is-why-were-tired/

[mcar]

1. K&R

[BigmanPigman]

2. Every word!

[mercuryblues]

3. All of that

just all of it. It is the Whack-a-Mole syndrome. When you spend 15 minutes explaining to 1 guy another guy comes right up behind him with the exact same perceived persecution. It is also like teaching to the lowest common denominator, over, and over again.

[DLevine]

4. K&R

[nolabear]

5. Amen. I posted this on Facebook:

What if you had not been afraid to walk down that street, go into that bar alone, wear that outfit, walk there at night, apply for that job, sit alone at that movie, ask for that favor, drive through that neighborhood, take that creepy prof's class, knock on that stranger's door, sit in that seat on the bus, take that trip alone...how different might your life have been? What was lost because you wore-wear-the ice cold shackles of fear?

[erinlough]

6. Oh yes,

Frankly I’m sick and tired of even having to consider the opinions and feelings of men at all. The only ones I even bother with are my Dem family and friends. I’m too old to care about men at all.

[LuckyLib]

7. K&R

[smirkymonkey]

8. K&R

[brush]

9. A big K&R.

[ismnotwasm]

10. And Andrea Dworkin said this in 1983

And she was mocked and reviled and rejected

TAKE BACK THE DAY
I Want a Twenty-Four-Hour Truce
During Which There Is No Rape
1983

I have thought a great deal about how a feminist, like myself, addresses an audience primarily of political men who say that they are antisexist. And I thought a lot about whether there should be a qualitative difference in the kind of speech I address to you. And then I found myself incapable of pretending that I really believe that that qualitative difference exists. I have watched the men's movement for many years. I am close with some of the people who participate in it. I can't come here as a friend even though I might very much want to. What I would like to do is to scream: and in that scream I would have the screams of the raped, and the sobs of the battered; and even worse, in the center of that scream I would have the deafening sound of women's silence, that silence into which we are born because we are women and in which most of us die.

And if there would be a plea or a question or a human address in that scream, it would be this: why are you so slow? Why are you so slow to understand the simplest things; not the complicated ideological things. You understand those. The simple things. The cliches. Simply that women are human to precisely the degree and quality that you are.

And also: that we do not have time. We women. We don't have forever. Some of us don't have another week or another day to take time for you to discuss whatever it is that will enable you to go out into those streets and do something. We are very close to death. All women are. And we are very close to rape and we are very close to beating. And we are inside a system of humiliation from which there is no escape for us. We use statistics not to try to quantify the injuries, but to convince the world that those injuries even exist. Those statistics are not abstractions. It is easy to say, "Ah, the statistics, somebody writes them up one way and somebody writes them up another way." That's true. But I hear about the rapes one by one by one by one by one, which is also how they happen. Those statistics are not abstract to me. Every three minutes a woman is being raped. Every eighteen seconds a woman is being beaten. There is nothing abstract about it. It is happening right now as I am speaking.

And it is happening for a simple reason. There is nothing complex and difficult about the reason. Men are doing it, because of the kind of power that men have over women. That power is real, concrete, exercised from one body to another body, exercised by someone who feels he has a right to exercise it, exercised in public and exercised in private. It is the sum and substance of women's oppression.

It is not done 5000 miles away or 3000 miles away. It is done here and it is done now and it is done by the people in this room as well as by other contemporaries: our friends, our neighbors, people that we know. Women don't have to go to school to learn about power. We just have to be women, walking down the street or trying to get the housework done after having given one's body in marriage and then having no rights over it.

http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/WarZoneChaptIIIE.html

[tblue37]

11. K&R for visibility. Thanks for posting this. nt

[redwitch]

12. Amen!

I alternate between weary and so outraged I want to throw things.

[Snake Plissken]

13. I completely understand this, but what I don't understand is ...

Why did 51% of White women vote for Trump?

I wouldn't vote for a piece of shit like Trump not in a million years, not ever, it absolutely blows my mind that 51% of White women would and did.

This will continue if scumbags like Trump continue to be rewarded by women in voting booths

[ehrnst]

15. McCain got 53%, Romney got 56% Bush got 55% (2004)

So actually, 51% is progress.


https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/whats-up-with-white-women-they-voted-for-romney-too

[HughBeaumont]

21. Except none of those guys are admitted serial sexual assaulters.

When it comes to women and treatment of women, Trump has a very serious character deficit.

That's what's dumbfounding about how he even got 51%.

[ehrnst]

23. If you supported DT, nothing he actually did mattered. He hated who you hated.

And Democrats didn't.

And here is a good analysis of why many white women went republican:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/whats-up-with-white-women-they-voted-for-romney-too

[m-lekktor]

31. Apparently their dislike of Hillary Clinton outweighed everything else.

I know the stereotype, especially from Clinton partisans, is that it is the 'bros" that don't like her but the most viscious attacks against Hillary i see in "comments" sections can be from women.

[Lars39]

16. Religion and power

Fundamentalist women gain a little bit of power in their world from doing what their preachers and husbands expect of them.

[whathehell]

25. Oh please..

Women of ALL faiths and NO faith "get a little power" from doing

what their husbands expect from them.

[Lars39]

27. Dynamics are very different in a patriarchal family.

Been observing this up close and personal fir about 40 years now.

[whathehell]

28. I know..but patriarchal families exists across the board..

They are neither constrained nor circumscribed by any particular religion -- Patriarchy precedes religion.

[Lars39]

29. Fundamentalist religions are the vehicle, though.

[whathehell]

30. For Fundie families, maybe..

but they only comprise about 30% of American Christians.

it's all kind of moot, anyway, since the ballot box is secret, whatever Fundie husband's expect.

[whathehell]

19. Please read the post.

Last edited Wed Oct 18, 2017, 08:26 AM - Edit history (2)

as you clearly did not if you could make this statement:

'this will continue as long as women continue to reward men like Trump at the ballot box".

Um, snake?...This is about about WAY more than Trump,
and no, you not only don't "completely understand", you likely don't understand much, since your "question" is incredibly insufficient, and, at best, just another example of "Whataboutism".


For what it's worth, and it's not much, imo, the majority of College educated White Women voted Hillary -- The majority of College educated White MEN voted Trump. 'Nuff said.

[HughBeaumont]

22. Really, how educated can the men BE if they thought "President Trump" was a good idea?

All the degrees in the world can't make up for the defective thought process that dictates Hillary would have been just as bad or a worse choice than Trump.

[whathehell]

24. Maybe Misogyny outweighs education

for many men?

[LittleGirl]

14. Excellent

Bookmarked and saved as a favorite. This is epic!
Thank you for sharing.

[Pacifist Patriot]

17. Add my signature. K&R

[whathehell]

18. Wow..just Wow.

May be best and truest piece on this issue I have EVER read.

[Demsrule86]

20. Can I tell you sisters all the times I have some man wag his finger in my face,

and tell my about my experience ... what I should do and think...no more.

[GaryCnf]

26. I have no standing to comment BUT

I can at least do this