To a woman in this world
There a few things as daunting as being a young single woman walking into a bar with a sea of men waiting for you to navigate to get to the bar, or being a woman going into the women’s toilets in the hope that you do not get a scary trans woman walking out of one of the stalls. At least that is the message pumped out across media outlets in the last two years; women, be afraid of everyone not of your sex, and be afraid of trans women most of all. To be a woman is to be thrust into a political arena not of your own making, a tool of either the patriarchy or a transmaiden if you dare to be trans inclusive. It is never enough, as regardless of your personal opinions your body dictates what your politics should be. Or at least that is what exclusionary feminists demand of women in this world.
It would be churlish to downplay the abuse, harassment, and threats women face on a daily basis, yet as will all agitprop where there is a solid core of truth many layers of propaganda are added lasagne-like on top. Deconstructing this is complex, as every person has their own notion of what womanhood should be, or at least the idealised version. You cannot escape normative notion of womanhood, it suffuses every corner of our society. From fashion magazines to TikTok to trad wives to punks to trans women to your own mothers, what influences women and girls and men and boys is this rich textured interplay that is…
