Thought Catalog Is Starting To Bother Me

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Thought Catalog used to be a shining beacon of the Internet. I can remember months back when open-minded twenty-somethings used to congregate and babble about the unity in being misguided. It was quirky, it was cute, it was underground, and it was pretty pure. The whiteness on the background was innocent.

Now, I see it as ostentatious and boastful. “Look at how liberal we are and how much we love everyone,” the angry women of my generation will shout. “Look at how much better we are than you for believing that no one is better than anyone else!” It makes me feel like these people noticed that no one in the real world was listening, so they came flocking on this site, my little secret favorite place on the Internet, to see who can agree that every white man is oppressive in the most pretentious language.

Once, I saw someone in the comment section write that she was “unfortunately conditioned” to expect “crudely condescending language” from “most American males” these days. What I think is that the insecurity that must come with expecting all men to talk down to you must be an unbearable burden, but is undoubtedly within your own mind because I watch men and women interact very civilly every single day, and most women I know don’t cower in fear.

The aggressive feminism that’s starting to come out is… turn-offish, to say the least. And I’m sick of it. Because I’ve seen that the women on this site frequently don’t understand that men and women can be equals without making men inferior. There should never be an article that says “men can’t have an opinion on this,” because CAN YOU BELIEVE the outrage if the same article was posted against women?! And the crazy thing is that men are starting to believe that all women are as psychotic as to not want men to hold doors open for them anymore, and frankly, it’s ruining everything for everyone. If I see one more “thank you for posting this.” on the comment section on an article telling men to sit the fuck down so that women can literally do everything for them (except, of course, make dinner, take care of their children, and give them blowjobs), I’m going to start crying.

At this point I don’t even know who the pioneers of today’s feminist movement are, or what they’re arguing for. Sure, wages still aren’t equal, but as opposed to rallying and protesting and campaigning and asking government for better wage laws, women today will sit on the internet and say things like “the wages still aren’t equal!!! Can you fucking believe it?!” Where are we going with that type of movement? At this rate, we are, as a gender, refusing to take care of kids, demanding to get the highest paying jobs (and G-d forbid the male that we’re competing with ACTUALLY BE the more qualified candidate), and won’t settle for anything else but won’t work to get ourselves there either. So we’re not going anywhere, because we’re trying to do all of the things that men traditionally do, and none of the things that women traditionally do, so the things that women traditionally do aren’t getting done.

I think we should be proud of the role we have as women. There’s a reason that cavemen would go out hunting and their partners would stay at home and take care of the community. It’s because men and women are separate groups of people with separate skill sets, and one should only breach that line when one wants to breach that line, not because the other people in that person’s gender group are making that person feel closed-minded and backwards for not wanting to do so.

We don’t need to become men in order to be equal.

Things that people will argue against this article:

1. “You are too traditional and don’t stand for women’s rights”

This is absurd and I hope it doesn’t happen. I’m a woman, and of course I stand for my own rights. I think some of the ways that women aren’t equal today are absurd. But I don’t think that men need to suppress their gender, their natural instincts, their politeness towards women, their views of us being more dainty, their wanting to take care of us and shelter us, just because we want them to see us as being as tough as them. The truth of the matter is, we’re not as tough as them, and they’re never going to see us that way. And, I also read somewhere that because we want to be seen as “not dainty,” men are starting to think that we are sexually in tune with them, which allows women to be further objectified: men traditionally don’t have a problem being seen as sexual objects, and when women fight to be more like men, they see it as us also not having a problem being seen as sexual objects, which is, of course, every feminist’s worst nightmare.

2. “When men rape women, it’s fair for women to act out.”

I also obviously agree with this. Men can’t ever rape women. But when you see a mn being polite and interpret it as an actual example of him thinking that we are physically inferior and easily dominated, you are not only seeming paranoid, but making your whole gender seem paranoid.

3. “Sorry us feminists are “ruining everything” for you-we just thought you’d want to vote.”

OF COURSE I want to vote. But don’t you dare undermine the actual feminist movement of the 20s and all that it accomplished by calling this feminist movement an equal extension of that one- you guys aren’t actually doing anything except complaining.

4. “Men are the people that gave that woman from that article insecurities.”

I’d disagree here. I’m a woman, I’ve grown up around women, I love women. And somehow, most of us, except for the ones that have reasons to feel traumatized (rape, abuse, etc.), we all managed to avoid being petrified of degradation every time a man comes within a 100-foot radius. I’d argue that there are deeper problems going on with that woman that she should deal with and not use to represent everyone’s opinion. The beautiful thing is that we all have our own opinions, and there’s nothing that annoys me more than being spoken for.

5. “Fine, stay home, don’t have a job or a career, have fun with your kids.”

I want a job, I want a career. But it would also be fine if I didn’t want those things. It’s okay to want a prince, it’s okay to want to be a stay-at-home mom, it’s okay to not want to work and to have everything taken care of financially. I hope to love my kids more than anything, even my career, and there’s no problem with that. Women have the right to birth because our skill sets and emotional capacities give us better abilities to take care of other human beings. That’s amazing, and should be taken advantage of, not seen as an embarrassing, inconvenient weakness.

6. “If you don’t like TC, then leave.”

Oh, trust, me, I’m on my way out. I just wanted you all to know what finally pushed me away for good.

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image – Gigi Ibrahim