“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Dear Person who has a right to grow up like everybody else, This is the letter I told you about ; the one that when I told you, you smiled and joked: “It’s not that I’m dismissive of Women’s Studies, it’s that I just don’t care.” As your friend, your ex, and your school family – as a person you care about - I am asking you to suspend your existing opinions for this letter; suspend your disbelief. Give yourself a chance to see how feminism is your issue too. I want to convince you that Women’s Studies is not only important, but it is important to you. You are being affected by unacknowledged forces and socially constructed ideas about gender just as deeply as a designated at birth male as I am as a designated at birth female. I know that your reflex is to laugh this off and not really care: so ask yourself two questions. Does your identity depend on whether you are loved by a woman? Do you forgo traditional masculine traits in order to be “one of the girls”? Do these questions seem ridiculous? absurd? asked by no one ever? Switch the genders Does your identity depend on whether you are loved by a man? Do you forgo traditional feminine traits in order to be “one of the boys”? and then you get a picture of what has defined my whole female life these become real issues that scientific study after study is able to recognize; issues which take many forms, some more subtle and dangerous than others. Feminism is merely a lens, a perspective you use to see the world more clearly. You will recognize how being dismissive of these issues comes at your own peril – whether it is in your relationships and friendships, your teaching career, or even your development as an individual. This letter is about you in the context of a bigger picture, and you will do yourself a lifetime of favor by giving it a chance to – not change you – but broaden and connect what already exists within your mind. Dismissing feminism and subscribing to preexisting social constructs – stories produced by cultural, social, and historical forces about what one is or is not, should or shouldn’t be - is detrimental to personal development and fulfillment. These social constructs or “stories” are pervasive, and ultimately determine every choice we make and how we see ourselves - who we are. You may not realize it, but these very stories – these scripts we seem to follow– are what have made feminism so laughable to you and countless other men and women. You’ve been set up to believe it’s all the nonsensical ramblings of “Nazi Feminists” which is both antisemitic and sexist, though said often and causally. That’s just another story, another script that we’re taught to abide. Women aren’t unfamiliar with it either, and often can’t even comfortably call themselves feminists. False stories have been repeated throughout generations, like an echo through time, making it invisible to us because we see it as simply the way things are and have always been. It is a struggle to fight against our habits, which include the natural processes of our mind, but it is necessary if we want to live a satisfying and justified life – to know the true possibilities and limits of our being. Just look at us: both considered intellectuals, we have a passion for music, poetry, trivia, TV shows, literature, and we are pretty much introverts. We both came out of lower income families and had to experience the deaths of our only true parental figures. We’re both excellent writers, and have clearly defined ambitions in life even if they’re very different ambitions. Even if we never really got to know ourselves or each other much less what we wanted. we’re more alike than we are different: more like each other than, for example, I am like our bubbly XX friend or you are like our conservative XY friend – all four of us are friends – and yet me and you have always paired off. Some kind of intertwined soul even if forced together by fate and not organic existence my women and gender studies minor has taught me there are more differences among than between genders. In other words, there is a wider ranging spectrum of difference from girl to girl or boy to boy than between boys and girls. Behavior – personality - has no gender. This is why I prefer to be understood as a non-binary woman person and I don't care how complicated it is another person's identity does not define me you do you boo. But while behavior has no gender, neither does power and yet it is the situations created by social constructs which have pushed the power toward the patriarchy and those who submit to it obediently leaving women and dissidents in general without agency please don’t feel attacked by the recognition of privilege something you’ve just always had born as you use it well It’s not your fault but I hope you will grow to care no matter who we become real love L.
