this is for every guy that's ever verbally/physically/sexually abused a girl, tore down herself esteem, and made her feel as if she was completely worthless without him...
this for every magazine, movie, television show, and advertisement that tricks girls into thinking that the standard of beauty is white, young, straight, able-bodied, deathly skinny, completely free of body hair, and otherwise unachievable and therefore that we are nothing if we don't fit into this mold...
this is for the society that let's "boys be boys", but socializes girls to believe that their purpose in life is to stand still and look pretty, without ever questioning the status quo or expressing any sort of anger, hostility or sexual desire...
this is for every member of my family, that needs to make some comment about my weight, usually in the form a back handed compliment, every time they see me, but doesn't say a thing to male relatives about their appearances...
this is for every brother of color who "only dates white girls" or considers white girls more attractive/"better" than us sisters of color, and make us seem like hideous monsters unless we straighten and/or dye our hair, bleach our skin and double fold our eyelids to be just like them...
this is for everyone who holds true to the double standards and passes judgement on any girl that expresses her sexuality, but encourages guys to go "spread their seed"...
this is for the slang and language that we use daily, such as "hit like a girl", which make women seem weak or less than men and "bitch/slut/whore" which still lack in equally demeaning male counterparts...
this is for the government that says we are all equal, but gives women paychecks that are drastically less than their male counterparts for doing the same work...
this is for the parents that let their sons do whatever they please and place no restrictions on them but dictate every detail of their daughters lives...
this is for any guy that thinks that girls have it so much easier, when really we are holding our tongues, "letting it slide" and putting others before ourselves because that's what "good girls" are supposed to do...
this is for every person who will read this blog, get offended, and write it off as nothing more than a "femi-nazi" "man-hating" rant, and completely miss the point I am trying to make...
FUCK YOU
You will never recognize your privilege, but the minute it is even slightly threatened you get riled up. You criticize activists for fighting something that isn't there or you think they already have, and never consider the possibility that you just don't see it because things are working in your favor.
I am writing this blog after considering many different instances that have came up in the past month that have to do with male privilege. We have a society that is progressed so much in such a short amount of time and I am really grateful for that, but that doesn't not mean that we have to stop fighting. Feminism may have came along way but we have so much more to go. I feel like people forget to recognize just how much impact gender has on our lives still. We also forget that it really doesn't have to be this way. I know it is much easier to say that "it's just the way things are", but that's just blind reinforcement of the double standard. Both men and women are guilty of this reinforcement, but by recognizing either privlege or inequality, we are getting just a small step closer.
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