jay misérables

there is a kind of woman, generally one good at things men like to do, who feels the need to distance herself from feminine weakness.

this impulse to separate yourself from other women is something implanted in the psyche by patriarchy. divide and conquer.

if you are a woman who likes masculine things, you fight constantly against men who don't want to let you into their societies.

over time, it's easier to just acquiesce to what men want, thus gaining a kind of half-acceptance into their world, than to keep fighting.

this is a sad thing, but understandable. fighting the men who like the thing you like day after day is soul-destroying.

we all know the kind of woman this acquiescence produces. she is the Cool Girl, who is low-maintenance and doesn't mind sexist jokes.

Cool Girls like the things boys like in ways that are non-threatening and acceptable. they are Not Like Other Girls.

of course, the acceptance you get as a Cool Girl is illusory. it lasts until you fail to toe the line - and every girl fails eventually.

but until that time, Cool Girls cement themselves on the side of the men whose acceptance they need by positioning themselves against women.

when a woman is harassed or hurt, the Cool Girl rushes to say that such a thing would never happen to her, because she knows better.

Cool Girls think other women face sexism because they go looking for it, or because they're weak, or both.

Cool Girls have experienced sexism, but chosen to ignore it because making a fuss wouldn't be cool. acceptance from men comes at a price.

I don't entirely blame Cool Girls for their complicity in patriarchy. the pressure to be what men want is strong, crushing.

while they mock more feminine women for being men's playthings, Cool Girls merely occupy a different niche in the grand scheme of sexism.

but while I'm sympathetic (both as a woman generally and as a former Cool Girl myself), that sympathy has limits.

and here is one limit: I stop feeling bad for a woman held captive by sexist gatekeepers when she mocks sufferers of sexist abuse.

there's something inhumane about using a woman's suffering at the hands of abusers to make a point about your own relative strength.

and in the end, if a man decides to victimise you, he won't care how cool you are. your safety was always just an illusion.

I'm writing this in the aftermath of a particular man being exposed as a serial sexual abuser within social justice spaces.

amidst the stories of women who were his victims, I've seen women who were his friends, but never victimised themselves.

their sentiment - more explicit some times than others - is along the lines of "he knew better than to try that with *me*".

and I have to wonder at the fragility of a woman who can only convince herself that she's strong by deriding the "weakness" of others.