things english speakers know, but don’t know we know.
WOAH WHAT?
That is profound. I noticed this by accident when asked about adjectives by a Japanese student. She translated something from Japanese like “Brown big cat” and I corrected her. When she asked me why, I bluescreened.
What the fuck, English isn’t even my first language and yet I picked up on that. How the fuck. What the fuck.
Reasoning: It Just Sounds Right
Oooh, don’t like that. Nope, I do not even like that a little bit. That’s parting the veil and looking at some forbidden fucking knowledge there.
This is Secret Knowledge held by we English teachers. Which heretic shared it?
Men are not inherently violent, predatory, or dangerous. Any feminist project worthy of the name needs to acknowledge that this behavior is taught. The idea of men being biologically predisposed to being abusers or rapists is actively used against abuse and rape survivors / victims
(does the phrase “boys will be boys” ring a bell at all to you?) and will never, ever work in our favor.
The whole “male predisposition to toxicity” thing is also frequently used against trans women, by terfs. So that’s shitty too.
I’ve also heard it used to belittle the trauma of male survivors – after all, men are all jerks, so he probably deserved it!
Furthermore, the more people think men are born to be awful, the fewer people are gonna teach boys NOT TO BE AWFUL, and the fewer adult men are gonna make the effort to be better people, which is…kind of necessary? Because the onus of ending male awfulness is on men, and the parents of *future* men, not on anyone else.
I highly recommend folks read “Boys Will Be Boys”, by Clementine Ford.
It’s a book which tackles just this: how big the lie is that it’s “natural” for boys and men to be aggressive. She cites lots of studies, and delves into just how deeply ingrained toxic masculinity is in this patriarchal society, and how this harms everyone. Women, men, trans and gender non-conforming people. Honestly, everyone is so negatively affected by this.
It’s also no coincidence that male suicide stats are so high — it comes back to this dangerous, restrictive, unnatural notion that men “aren’t allowed to feel things”, or be emotional beings, thus making them feel like failures for having any emotions at all. Society needs to work harder at addressing this toxicity, and make space for a healthy masculinity. One that doesn’t punish men when they are gentle, caring people, and that doesn’t prescribe “only one way to be a man”.
adults are always talking about how “kids will do anything to get out of school” and okay, first of all that’s not true, but I think we really need to ask why that idea holds so much sway.
children’s brains are hard-wired to take in new information and acquire new skills. consider, for a moment, just how thoroughly our society had to fuck up the concept of education for it to be a normal thing to assume kids are universally desperate to avoid learning.
couple things here:
multiple things can actually be bad at the same time
I’m 32
“Just wait until you’re an adult, then you’ll really suffer!”
I’d… like… kids AND adults to both not suffer?
Capitalism screws us all over and I’d like kids and adults to have a better life than what they’re getting now?
I mean, the school system was basically designed to train you to be okay with working 40 to 60 hours a week just to struggle to support yourself, so there’s that.
Like when I say ‘white people need to talk to bigots because bigots don’t listen to minorities’ I did not say ‘and it will be easy and fun’.
I know it’s easier to be like ~boo hooo the world is so evil and there’s nothing I can dooo~ but it’s statistically and experientially understood, just by fucking 3rd grade logic, that a bigot will be less amenable towards the subject of their bigotry.
Bigots don’t just ~not like~ minorities- they don’t think we’re human. It’s not about whether they agree with you or not in the moment. Like, pause.
Understand this:
Calls to action for white people to oppose bigotry are calls for white people to position themselves as opposition. THEY ARE NOT CALLS FOR ~SUCCESSFUL DEBATE~
Do not think you are expected nor are you likely to just go around arguing with bigots and they’ll go ‘I agree with you because you’re white!’.
Your job is to be sandpaper.
Every time they open their mouths to make a bigoted joke, or a bigoted remark, or post their shitty bigoted opinion online, you grate against them.
Your job is to make it hard to be a bigot or a fascist. Your job is to ostracize them. Your job is to speak over them the way they love to speak over minorities. Your job is to make it difficult, lonely, annoying, stressful and unwelcome to be a bigot.
When you are white and silent, You are making it easy. You are just letting it happen.
When minorities speak up for themselves, they are in danger, and the bigot just writes off our arguments as the chattering of ‘lessers’.
You, white people, whether you think so or not, are their peers.
Specifically those of you who look and talk like, to an outside observation, your average white american.
Bigots think you all think like them, but are too scared to say it. That, or you’re too much of a coward to stop them.
YOUR JOB IS TO PUSH BACK AND PROVE THEM WRONG.
YOUR JOB IS TO SEPARATE THEM FROM THEIR OWN COMMUNITY AT LARGE.
There are devils among you and if you want to stop being associated with them then fucking prove it. You’re pretty much the only people who can.
ForLoveFromFear 