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Why No One Asked “What Is A Woman?” Until Recently
Trying to cram the definition of women into a box is like trying to capture and cage the moon
Roaring Rivers: Very Unpopular Strong Opinions Blog by Christyl Rivers
All of a sudden you have to define it!
It feels as though we never heard this question over the last few decades because no one cared. Either a patriarchal culture never stopped to think: ‘What about women, what is a woman?’ or they knew that our society is so entirely entrenched in assumed roles, that to wonder about one’s own gender was very much a way to invite instant alienation and humiliation.
When I was very young, not even gay people could comfortably allow themselves to know they were gay or lesbian. I knew men who lived cramped and smaller lives due to their ‘shameful’ secret self-questioning.
Both of those men are now dead, thanks to an eighties attitude that saw them as ‘less than.’ The same sort of thing is now happening with trans people.
Some people don’t want them to be some of “us,” because in the very limited and cramped imagination of too many people, if they are us, then who are we? It’s really pretty warped and limiting.