We’ll Always Be Inappropriate Women
The misogynist doublespeak we’ve been fed our whole lives reveals a hidden truth about the impossible standards we’re expected to live up to.
Inappropriate.
A word I’ve heard my entire life in some fashion or another.
First it was lock-and-stock high school bullshit about my first few vaunted pieces of goth and alternative wear, which eventually filled my closet once I had more autonomy over what I wore (then my own cash). Well, one area where goths and cheerleaders unite: misogynist dress codes that assume we wear short shorts and spaghetti strap tops to short-circuit boys’ concentration, not because it is crematorium outside and those cheap pricks won’t install air conditioning in schools that are in what’s supposedly the richest country in the world.
Then it was about how I should wait for a guy to call me instead of making the first move after we traded numbers outside CB’s or the Batcave. Then how I actually spoke to/with him, regardless of who called first. I couldn’t enjoy meeting boys, dating, and hooking up for what they were: it had to be about if I was practically vetting this guy to get married, and I better not be too sexual too fast, because it’s inappropriate, not ladylike, and even the goddamn punk scene engaged in this puritanism time to time.
Then upon getting older, I would occasionally get accused of bragging about my royalty checks or the handsome fees I was collecting for writing and consulting. Even after I explained how I earned them! Funny, I thought our society was so off because people didn’t honestly discuss money, and the road to freelance and entrepreneurial success also purposely has shadow cast over it. Apparently, it was inappropriate to openly discuss my earnings and express joy in my success after spending most of my twenties broke and extremely depressed — even upon offering to lift others up.
I determined that woman can’t do anything right. Ever.
Everything we do will always be shoved under a microscope, searching for some quality control defect or another.
Our modes of dress are always inappropriate.
The way we act, no matter how demure, is inappropriate.
Our fucking language is inappropriate.
OUR VERY EXISTENCE IS INAPPROPRIATE.
I frequently ponder the duality of womanhood in our utterly regressive society. Namely, how much of the sheer abuse blended with blatant and covert forms of misogyny I have dealt with all my life. How much of my life experience could be chalked up to things like repressed parents raising me with Old World ideals in a 90s world as the new millennium was imminent, versus living in an inherently misogynistic world?
How many sexists had I just personally encountered in my education, professional experience, the punk and metal scenes, and general daily life, compared to how ubiquitous sexism is in our society?
I cast aside those utterly stupid notions that police how women dress and express their sexuality; because we’re always doing SOMETHING wrong. I then determined that you can basically live covered head-to-toe in Kevlar, vacuum-sealing your nether regions, and men are still going to sexualize you anyway.
Denying yourself consensual pleasure does not automatically yield respect from the man propositioning you, or his friends, your community, or whatever other force you’re afraid of. If he won’t respect you with your clothes off, who says he will with your clothes on? Have your fun and move on, if you choose to. Life is short.
Modesty does not save you from patriarchy. Just like how wearing nice clothes will not save you from racism, “passing” will not curb transphobia, eating healthy foods sure as fuck doesn’t stop fatphobia, and the list goes on. Respectability politics is a trap designed only to appease the oppressors and make the oppressed in-fight over the scraps they deign to hurl our way.
There will always be something about your conduct that displeases the oppressors. There is no point in trying to placate them. Choose yourself for your own sanity and joy, that you deserve!
Literally, nothing about your conduct will ever please these people. Because in the event that something horrific does happen to you? You’re going to get thrown to the wolves, as the hideous comment sections have shown in light of the recent sexual assault allegations against Governor Cuomo. Institutional misogyny is the circling wagons of “why didn’t she just quit”, “this must be some political opposition”, and “here’s something she did two years ago”. Victims are never perfect, the time to come forward is never right, and other women are just as complicit as men in driving home that “appropriateness” bullshit that makes victims stay silent in the first place.
Oh, but this weekend near the end of the trash fire that is 2020 just kept on giving.
Not only have the buzzards been circling someone brave enough to come forward about Cuomo, but an EMT with an OnlyFans was outed by the New York Post, where you guessed it: she may face disciplinary action for “inappropriate behavior”.
Inappropriate. Again. In the year of our Toad 2020.
Where we have literal sexual abusers in power at every level of governance in the public and private sectors, and marginalized people are expected to just keep standing up in the face of trauma and pleasing their oppressors, but it’s a goddamn OnlyFans that’s INAPPROPRIATE?
I thought that repeatedly making unwanted advances at work or in a professional setting was inappropriate, not what an adult woman consents to do on camera in exchange for money.
And she’s a healthcare worker, for crying out loud. How much nudity do they encounter on the job?! Look, if I’m choking to death here, I don’t care if the EMT trying to revive me does gay burlesque or posts nudes in their spare time.
The REAL inappropriate thing here is that she’s not paid enough to actually live in the city she serves and needs a side hustle. I mean, where the fuck else is that $2,000 non-covered charge for an ambulance going then if it’s not paying paramedics?
Social media has been a Pandora’s Box on a personal and societal level. But if there’s one thing it’s made me eternally grateful for, it’s that it’s a reflection of a worldwide id spiraling out of control…for better and worse. Countless threads of full of stories just like mine, experiences that mirror my own, no matter how similar or different I am to the poster. It has shown me just how deeply-rooted this misogynistic rot is in our society, and how we really just need to burn this motherfucker down and start all over again.
Because expecting perfection and respectability politics in the face of constant trauma and impossible standards really ain’t it.