Tag: feminism

She loves me, she loves me not

She loves me, she loves me not

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Recently, I’ve noticed a change in myself when it comes to how I approach friendships with other young women. As some of you may know, I grew up alongside three older brothers, and have always had a close relationship with my dad. This isn’t to say that my mum and I aren’t close, because she’s undoubtedly one of my best friends, still, I’ve always felt more comfortable in the company of men.

All four of us were raised as feminists and were encouraged to show appreciation and love for the successes of individuals regardless of their gender. Yet, my parents could only do so much when it came to raising children in a society built on thousands of years’ worth of patriarchal ideas. So the fact is, that when I went to school and I socialised with kids outside of my home environment, I found myself experiencing way more grief when it came to my friendships with girls compared to those I experienced with boys. For instance, I could type page after page of stories of when I’d been friends with a girl for a long time then all of a sudden she had decided she didn’t like me for some reason or another, and boom: the bitching starts, everyone’s crying, friendship over.

Hence, I find myself walking into rooms full of all types of people, and the ones I feel the most intimidated by – without a shadow of a doubt – are the cis heterosexual women. Especially ones in a big group. But a lot of the time, I’m not intimidated because I don’t think that I would like them, it’s because I figure that the second I open my mouth and show myself as confident, self-assured, articulate, or (god forbid) comfortable around cis heterosexual men, these women won’t like me. I just can’t be arsed with the judgemental stares.

Only, I fucking LOVE women. I am one ffs. But society and its patriarchy are so unbelievably divisive that the second we’re away from those we love, and even occasionally whilst we’re with those we love, women are taught to rip each other to absolute shreds. We’re taught to judge, and distrust, and hate each other so much that sometimes we can’t help but subconsciously give in to the misogyny. As much as we raise our friends up for being confident and loving themselves, it’s not always easy to carry that approach into every situation. Plus, women can and are really awful to each other sometimes, so it’s not always easy to like every one.

However, the main point I want to make in this week’s blog, is that all women should stop being so distrusting of one another just because of the fact that we’re female; doing so doesn’t help anyone. My friendships with the women in my life now are some of the closest, most colourful, joyful relationships I will ever have, and I think it a shame that sometimes I might have accidentally stopped others from developing because I’ve assumed things before I’ve asked any questions.

So, the moral of this story is: you’re not going to like everyone, but don’t let the reason you don’t like someone be because of their gender.

Let’s talk about sex, bby

Let’s talk about sex, bby

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Talking about sex in a super honest way is rarely done, because if you bring it up, a lot of the time people start to feel nervous, uncomfortable, anxious, self-conscious, etc, etc. And these reactions make perfect sense: sex is one of the most intimate things you can do with another person. However, it’s also nothing to be afraid of, so we should probably start getting more aware of how sex-positive we really are.

Sex-positivity, in the way I understand it, is the recognition and acceptance that sex is a totally normal part of a person’s life. It’s something most of us do, and society should normalise talking about it; especially in the sense that it should be enjoyable for everyone involved.

That sounds pretty simple, right? If you’re sexually active, then you should be enjoying it, and comfortable enough around your friends/family/sexual partner/s to talk about it. But unfortunately, sex-positivity isn’t practised by society as much as it should be.

For women, the idea of sex is both empowering and oppressive. We can take our sexuality into our own hands and decide who we want to sleep with and when, but whilst we’re empowering ourselves and our female friends, there always comes a point when you wonder whether doing this is making you seem like a bit of a slut to the wider world. And nobody wants to be a slut: that kind of reputation rarely ends well.

So we use the word with each other. And by trying to reclaim the term, women are somewhat able to fight against society telling us how much sex we should be having, because after all, my sex life is nobody’s business but my own.

This attitude, however, doesn’t mean that sex-positive women aren’t self-conscious, nervous or conflicted when it comes to sex. You might be totally fine with the concept of a one night stand, but then when you have one, thousands of years of female sexual oppression might start creeping into your head to tell you that you’re a slut and you’re making a fool of yourself. It happens; sexism’s a bitch.

Generally speaking though, sex should never be a thing that’s only appropriate for each gender to speak about amongst themselves. At school, I never saw how it made sense to separate the boys and the girls for the sex education talks. I obviously need to know the details of what’s going to happen with my body, but there’s a whole other half of the population that I’m actively not being told about. So when I develop relationships with that gender, there’s this huge barrier between us already, and I don’t see how that’s helpful.

Sex encompasses so many ideas and emotions that are vital to our relationships with ourselves and each other – regardless of gender. Politics, history, science, philosophy, psychology, anthropology: you name it, talking about sex would probably make parts of it make more sense. But aside from all that nerdy stuff, sex is fun, so why not talk about it in the same way you talk about all the other things you enjoy? That way, when it isn’t fun, you’ll feel comfortable enough around someone to tell them why.

Safety in numbers

Safety in numbers

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Recently I’ve been thinking about how when we move to University, there’s this weird societal assumption that we’re all going to fit right in and find ‘our people’ as soon as we walk through the door. And whilst that can sometimes be true, it rarely is.

I was super fortunate to meet most of my friendship group within the first week. But I can’t say that we were all nearly as close last year as we are now, nor can I say that I felt 100% myself whenever I was around them. Clearly, this is because it takes time for people to relax enough to properly get to know one another away from the excitement of having just met.

So now I really appreciate how stable I feel in the friendships I started last year. Obviously, we still don’t know everything about each other, but I’m definitely expending a lot less energy trying to explain why I am the way I am to everyone this year. And that’s a huge relief.

But an even more liberating part of this term has been the stability of the relationships I have with the young women around me. Especially seeing as finding friendships with girls where you feel completely safe to speak about anything – without judgement – isn’t that easy. From my experience, some of the cruellest effects of our patriarchal society show themselves in women attacking each other.

As unfortunate as it is, feeling safe and free from judgement when around your female peers can sometimes become a matter of safety. I don’t like to catastrophise or to assume the worst, but it’s a dark reality that at least one of my female friends and I are likely to experience sexual abuse or harassment at some point in our lives – if someone hasn’t already. Not to mention the general discrimination we’re all going to experience pretty much every day. Therefore feeling secure in our relationships with each other often determines whether we’ll ever have the confidence to talk about this abuse or not.

On a more positive note, these close female friendships also afford young women the space to be completely themselves. They create room for us to discover and experiment with who we want to be; making mistakes without having to fear that those mistakes will be used against us in the future.

So if it’s taken you a year (or longer) to feel settled into the University/adult life, then know that there’s no shame in being a part of this club. And if you’re female, remember that women aren’t your enemies. Don’t support this f*cked-up patriarchy we live in by tearing each other down when society gives us enough grief already. As this week’s title states: there’s safety in numbers.

Please don’t waste my time

Please don’t waste my time

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Lord knows that I’m appreciative of men. Some of my favourite people on the planet are men, and most of the time I’d probably prefer the company of a man rather than a woman. But I’m sorry lads, sometimes you can be absolute trash.

This past year I’ve experienced a (sometimes) overwhelming feeling of loneliness when it comes to romance. I’m 21 years old now and I think it’s safe to say that I’ve not been all that lucky when it comes to love for reasons I can’t really control. Naturally, this has gotten me in my feelings at points but this past year has made me lose all patience with the game of it.

I don’t know about you ladies, but I’ve wasted far too much time and energy on boys who have no clue what or who they want…and I am SICK OF IT. Whether it be talking to the straight-up f**k boys who chat a lot of romance until they’re around their mates, or the ‘nice’ lads who like you but not as much as they think you like them – not that they ever actually ask you how interested you are – I’m exhausted from the soap opera of it all.

This accommodation of men and their feelings we spend so much of our time doing, has got to end. If you’re texting a boy and he’s being sketchy, just cut it off. If you feel like you’re convincing someone to spend time with you, stop it. If when you talk about him to your mates you’re constantly making excuses to make him seem like less of a pr*ck, realise what you’re doing and how little sense that makes.

Many lads say that they want ‘simple’ and complain about how complicated girls are all of the time, but I’m sorry, from my experience the male species are riddles wrapped in enigmas that I’m expected to unravel. Why? Why should I do that? I don’t want to have to do that. I’m not making you do the same with me…

This isn’t an angry rant, because I feel calmer about my love life than I have for a really long time. I’m not saying that I don’t still want a boyfriend – that’d be ideal to be honest – I’m just at the point where I can’t face the game of it anymore. It’s really unrewarding. I’m also not trying to imply that I’m perfect when it comes to romance; nobody is. But I do know that I try to always treat people with respect, and I never waste anyone’s time on purpose.

After all, if someone values and respects you enough, then they’ll make an effort to spend time with you. If they don’t – regardless of what they say – then they’ll mess you about. Unfortunately however, it does seem like the age we’re at is a time when most people just want to mess about a bit. And that’s fair enough: you’re young, have some fun. But I want to have a fun, exciting, adult relationship with someone who cares about me as much as I do them, and I don’t see why that should have to start with some pointless game of ‘who’s going to text first?’.

So I’m not gunna do it anymore, and neither should you.

Sex education

Sex education

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This week I’m on my period. So for the past few days, I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing painful cramps, mood sWINgs, and a whole lot of bleeding. Too much information? Well tough.

Even though I have my period once a month, and it’s an entirely healthy part of my life, society encourages me to never talk about it. Then a direct consequence of this, is that women generally know very little about how their bodies work, and how to take care of them. And the men around them know even less. So no one knows anything, and half of the population’s physical and mental health is put at risk.

Not ideal.

But I’m not talking about everyone being able to regurgitate the facts they learnt in science – although you should be able to do that. This is about acknowledging the hormones and the pain women feel whilst on their periods as legitimate. We’re not overreacting: it f**king hurts. And as funny as it might be to see a girl cry over her bobble snapping, those hormones do genuinely mESS you up for a couple of days. I mean, sometimes we literally wake up in a pool of our own blood.

So, periods are intense and tedious enough: I don’t need society telling me that I should be embarrassed by them too. Nor do I need people to tell me how/what I should feel/wear/say/think when no one is taking an interest in my body or me anyway.

At the same time, I don’t know much about what male bodies go through. I know they don’t have such a dramatic time of it every month, but that doesn’t mean it’s always smooth-sailing. Like puberty, that doesn’t sound like a walk in the park for a boy – physically, or psychologically.

The point is that we never ask detailed, comprehensive questions about our bodies. But we go further than not asking: we stigmatise the topics so much so that it becomes ‘gross’ or ‘uncomfortable’ to even think about going there at all.

For women especially, getting to know yourself intimately isn’t normalised, so a lot of us just don’t do it – by ‘intimately’, I mean both sexually and biologically. A lot of my female friends have never even taken a mirror to have a look at themselves, let alone experiment with masturbation. Whereas a huge proportion of my male friends know their genitals as well as any other part of their body – maybe even better.

So if we’re saying that women barely know anything about their own bodies, and we then take that to talk about health and safety, how could we ever know that something is wrong, if we don’t know what we look like when we’re healthy? Then on a psychological level, how is it right that we’re so disgusted by our own bodies? We won’t touch or get to know ourselves but we’ll let some random lad who might ditch us next week do whatever he wants? I dOn’T tHiNk sO.

Conversations about our bodies shouldn’t be separated according to whatever genitals you were born with, because we don’t exclusively socialise with people of the same sex. We need to ditch the euphemisms and the pressure, so we can learn to look after each other and ourselves more effectively. After all, knowing this information will definitely save someone’s life one day – maybe even your own.

The girls’ bathroom

The girls’ bathroom

by elizabethmdouglas ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

When speaking to boys, sometimes there comes a point in the conversation when they ask me why the bloody hell girls go to the toilet together. And, once we’re in there, why’ve we got to take so long?

The most obvious answer is that we get to have a chat – and it’s quicker to cram loads of you in there, so you can go straight after each other whilst chatting… So yes, often we chat about stupid things, like how we’ve spotted a really fit boy and need to give each other a pep-talk before someone tries it on with him when we leave the bathroom. But then sometimes the conversations can take a whole other direction.

I’ve been in bathrooms and spoken with girls where they’ve confided in me about some really dark stuff. I’ve had separate girls tell me that they have an eating disorder they’ve never told anyone about, that they’re struggling with their mental health, and one even told me that she was in an abusive relationship. It’s in the safety and privacy of the girls’ toilets, that we get to be completely honest with each other and confess things that we may have been scared to tell anyone in any other environment.

Even though there will inevitably be someone shouting and banging on the cubicle door for those inside to ‘hurry up, I NEED A WEE’ in the background, we pass toilet roll over or under the cubicle dividers, try to speed up, and give that emotionally vulnerable female the attention she needs. And doing that is so important.

The ways in which women and girls regularly share their feelings with each other, has been subject to a lot of mockery throughout time. But whilst some of the conversations might be cringey, convoluted, drunken ‘I love yous’ and ‘you’re the best friend ever’, even those silly moments help set up a space of mutual love and trust. Yes, women can back-stab and b**** about each other, but there’s also this indescribably close bond that builds between a group of girls – and it’s conversations like those we have in the bathroom which help contribute to that.

I’m not saying that we exclusively cry and have ‘deep’ conversations when we go to the toilet, because sometimes we do the opposite. Sometimes we cram a group of us into one cubicle, only for someone to do some impressive and moderately dangerous acrobatics on the toilet seat to make everyone else laugh. Other times, we just go to de-sweat from dancing.

But then on the most serious end of the scale, the girls’ bathroom can act as a sanctuary or panic room for some girls.

There have been times in my life where I’ve gone on nights out and I’ve had groups of boys try to cut me off from the rest of my group. I’ve had friends who’ve had their drinks spiked. I, and many of my friends, have had physical contact we didn’t ask for or want. One time I was actually hit on my bum – right on the spot where all of the nerves which would allow me to have feeling in my feet are in a knot. So that slap caused me to not only feel violated and publicly humiliated, but it put me into excruciating pain for a few minutes – imagine someone dropping 2 weights on both of your feet at the same time. That’s what it feels like when the lump on my back is hit.

So in those times, girls know that they can go to the girls’ bathroom and that they’re less likely to be followed or trapped. There’ll be a huge group of more females there able to help or protect them. They can call someone from their phone to come help, or they can even call the police.

I adore men. I have so many men in my life who are some of the most amazing, caring and sensitive people on the planet. I know that when they hear of mine and my female friends’ experiences like this, they’re appalled and in disbelief because they would never do anything like that. But unfortunately, these things still happen, and they happen all the time. Often men just don’t notice when it does because they’ve never really had to worry whether they’ll be on the receiving end of it, so their radar for it is simply not on the same frequency.

That girls’ bathroom is so much more to women and girls than a place to cry about someone not texting us back. We need and cherish that space for our physical and emotional well-being.

Even if only for someone to dry your tears, tell you you look hot and to get back out there.