Written by Dani the Universe (danidanirevolution@gmail.com) –
So I rsquo;m sitting here, reading this bullshit article on the internet about how men are becoming less manly. Well what does that mean for women? Well the internet seems to think women are TOO manly these days. Not enough of us wear dresses and know how to cook a ham apparently.
What does it really mean to be ldquo;manly rdquo; or ldquo;feminine rdquo; anyway? Many people have told me over the years that I rsquo;m quite manly myself. Hell, when my grandma was around, she rsquo;d complain up and down about how I never wore dresses and should act more ldquo;like a lady. rdquo; While it rsquo;s true I detest dresses and skirts, I don rsquo;t really see a wardrobe primarily consisting of jeans, t-shirts and jackets as tomboyish or feminine. I like to think of myself as unisex in many aspects. ldquo;Androgynous rdquo; is a term I am very fond of.
To me and many of my friends here in the modern age, the phrases ldquo;act like a lady rdquo; and ldquo;man up rdquo; mean precisely shit. Why should we? Does it get us anything we don rsquo;t already have? What purpose does it serve to further widen the gap between us, started with our genitalia and ending in the amount of money we earn
In all honesty, manly and girly are not natural ways of perceiving people or the world we live in. When children are born, their gender provides guidelines to others on how to treat the child, whether they like it or not.
ldquo;Oh, you rsquo;re having a baby? Is it a girl or a boy? rdquo;It rsquo;s a fucking baby is what it is. What rsquo;s it to you?
Experiments have been conducted on children where people were asked to describe little boys and girls just by looking at them. The girls, of course, were all ldquo;precious rdquo; and ldquo;sweet. rdquo; The boys, on the other hand, were ldquo;handsome rdquo; and a ldquo;chip off the old block rdquo; (so I guess this study was done in the 1950 rsquo;s?). Guess what? They rsquo;d lied about the genders. Some handsome little girls they had there I guess.
Now I haven rsquo;t taken nearly enough liberal arts classes to be able to make an educated guess as to why this is so hard-wired into us as a society, but as far as uneducated guesses go I rsquo;d say it rsquo;s because people are goddamn stupid. We don rsquo;t treat animals this way. God knows that I treat both my dogs, boy and girl, the same way and don rsquo;t go out of my way to find the female a pink collar and the boy a blue. No one gives a shit. So why do we put so much emphasis on it for people?
I rsquo;m not a modern day feminist by any means and this isn rsquo;t because I don rsquo;t believe women should be granted the same rights as men. I do. Problem is that feminists have a very skewed way of looking at things. Let rsquo;s take (you guessed it!) ponies as an example. When My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic first started its reign over the internet, the fandom began calling themselves bronies. Then a bunch of bitches got their panties all in a twist and decided they didn rsquo;t want to be bronies. They wanted to be pegasisters.
Let me tell you hellip; why that rsquo;s bullshit.
Aside from the fact that the term pegasister excludes unicorns and earth ponies by way of its very description, it also excludes males. While you may think you have the balls (you don rsquo;t) to look me in the eye and say, ldquo;Well BRONIES is a term exclusive to males, rdquo; I rsquo;m going to go ahead and tell you that that rsquo;s wrong and you rsquo;re retarded. Bronies, a combination of bro and ponies, can be used to describe either gender. I rsquo;ve met plenty of women who have earned the title of a bro. We can be dudes, we can be guys, we can be bros and any woman who responds to the phrase, ldquo;hey guys rdquo; with ldquo;UGH I rsquo;M NOT A GUY rdquo; is probably a complete cunt and should be cast out from the rest of society.
You see, I rsquo;m an equalist (and not in the Avatar sort of way), not a feminist. Feminism is the idea that, ldquo;Oh. You have a thing. I want a thing, too. rdquo; Equalism is more like, ldquo;Hey, you have a thing. Can I share that thing? rdquo; Equalism is an ideology that does not have room in its ranks for terms like ldquo;girl gamer rdquo; and ldquo;male nurse. rdquo; We are gamers and we are nurses. The fact that I have boobs does not hinder my ability to whoop your ass in DPS and having a penis has never gotten in the way of anyone properly impaling someone with an IV. If I ever in my life hear someone say anything along the lines of, ldquo;Sorry I couldn rsquo;t save that child from the burning building; I am, after all, a female firefighter, rdquo; I think I rsquo;d swallow my own head and shit it right back out due to the silliness of it all.
What really gets me is this strange concept of everything needing a label. We can rsquo;t walk 5 steps out our door without categorizing and sub-categorizing everything and everyone we see. Does it benefit us in any way? It honestly just kind of makes us dicks. Over the course of my life, I rsquo;ve heard shit like, ldquo;A man isn rsquo;t a man unless he does this, that and the other thing. rdquo; FALSE. A man isn rsquo;t a man if he has a vagina. (Hell, as far as I rsquo;m concerned, a man can be a person with a vagina who claims they rsquo;re a man because they want to be. I don rsquo;t give a shit; call yourself a goose for all I care.) That rsquo;s it. It rsquo;s really fucking simple. I eagerly await the day we are classified as people before we rsquo;re labeled as man, woman, girl, boy, trannie, or (my personal favorite) OTHER.
Though I doubt that day will come in my lifetime.
