“The thing about patriarchy is that individual men, gay and straight, are often really wonderful people who you love deeply, but they have internalized some really poisonous shit. So every once in a while they say or do something that really shakes you because you’re no longer totally certain they see you as a human being, and you feel totally disempowered to explain that to them.”

The thing about this quote is it makes me really emotional (PMS admittedly might be a contributing factor as of right now.) But it gets me right at the pit of my stomach. This, this moment when one of your male friends makes a joke about women in the kitchen, or rape, or assumes gendered stereotypes about you and you cant react properly because you have no idea how to verbalize why it hurts you so much - to know other people have these moments, although sad, makes me feel better. Most of my friends, people I love dearly, are men and most of them at some time or another has made a joke about this (or said it seriously, which is even worse.) To know I’m not being sensitive, that I’m not reading into their words too much, to know other people experience this and can vocalize it better than me is really comforting. I’m not happy other people have these moments, because as you know if you’ve ever experienced it, it is the worst, it punches you in the stomach and acts like it has no idea why you’re bruised and out of breath. But to know I’m not alone in my feminist sufferings, sometimes is my only comfort when my friends make these very comments to me daily and have no idea why I’m so awkwardly silent after.