Hey guys.
As anyone who knows me knows, I am a staunch feminist. I believe in equal rights for people of all genders, of all ethnicities, and of all sexualities, and those basic principles tend to serve me pretty well as I go through life. And, you know, they are basic. But I'm growing up, and I have all these ideas in my head, and sometimes it feels like I can't translate them from Inside to Outside, and that's the stage I'm at right now.
Some background, I guess: a few months ago I joined Tumblr, and while it's confronted me with lots and lots of new ideas I mightn't've come across otherwise, it is the biggest source of doubt in my life. I am aware of the stereotype of the Tumblr Feminist, and I want to make this clear now: this is not what I'm talking about. What I am talking about are actual Tumblr feminists , and what I mean (italics for dayssss) is just that, feminists who speak their minds on Tumblr.
Tumblr has opened my eyes to lots of things I wasn't aware of, like gender dysphoria (not being comfortable in your assigned gender) and the struggles of minorities in places really, really far removed from my privileged first-world-cisgender-white-girl life. It has helped me inform my feminist ideals, and it has introduced me to endlessly inspiring people, whose struggles in everyday life definitely, immeasurably, put my feeble problems in perspective.
Another thing Tumblr has done for me is (apart from hemorrhaging my time, wow) is give me doubts. Doubts in my feminism, doubts in how I live my life, and doubts in my opinions. It is so, so hard to form an unbiased opinion of anything new when, as soon as you hear about it, you are bombarded with a MILLION DIFFERENT OPINIONS ALL AT ONCE. To be clear, this isn't exactly a Tumblr phenomenon: look at the comments under any video on Youtube relating to feminism, any at all, and I guarantee you you will be very, very confused, within five-ten seconds or so.
That's what I'm worried about, that I'll learn about something new and the way I learn about it portrays it badly, or in a problematic light, and that's how I'll know it, in this problematic way. And what if no one ever corrects me? What if I go through life thinking this horrible wrong thing, that could hurt people I know, and I just.. die that way? With these thoughts in my mind? Having passed them on, even, to family, or children, or other friends? What if I'm part of spreading bad things to more and more people?
As I get older, these thoughts loom in my mind, but the difference is, the difference will have to be, that I can trust myself not to just believe the first thing I hear. I need to have a filter, somewhere between my eyes and my ears, and where my beliefs go, and I can run new information through that filter, and it can help me figure out if it's wrong, or right, or, uh, really super-off. I need to let my beliefs grow, and I need to let my feminism evolve, and I hope to hurt as little people as possible on the way.
Did that make sense? Any and every thought welcomed.
xx,
C
As anyone who knows me knows, I am a staunch feminist. I believe in equal rights for people of all genders, of all ethnicities, and of all sexualities, and those basic principles tend to serve me pretty well as I go through life. And, you know, they are basic. But I'm growing up, and I have all these ideas in my head, and sometimes it feels like I can't translate them from Inside to Outside, and that's the stage I'm at right now.
Some background, I guess: a few months ago I joined Tumblr, and while it's confronted me with lots and lots of new ideas I mightn't've come across otherwise, it is the biggest source of doubt in my life. I am aware of the stereotype of the Tumblr Feminist, and I want to make this clear now: this is not what I'm talking about. What I am talking about are actual Tumblr feminists , and what I mean (italics for dayssss) is just that, feminists who speak their minds on Tumblr.
Tumblr has opened my eyes to lots of things I wasn't aware of, like gender dysphoria (not being comfortable in your assigned gender) and the struggles of minorities in places really, really far removed from my privileged first-world-cisgender-white-girl life. It has helped me inform my feminist ideals, and it has introduced me to endlessly inspiring people, whose struggles in everyday life definitely, immeasurably, put my feeble problems in perspective.
Another thing Tumblr has done for me is (apart from hemorrhaging my time, wow) is give me doubts. Doubts in my feminism, doubts in how I live my life, and doubts in my opinions. It is so, so hard to form an unbiased opinion of anything new when, as soon as you hear about it, you are bombarded with a MILLION DIFFERENT OPINIONS ALL AT ONCE. To be clear, this isn't exactly a Tumblr phenomenon: look at the comments under any video on Youtube relating to feminism, any at all, and I guarantee you you will be very, very confused, within five-ten seconds or so.
That's what I'm worried about, that I'll learn about something new and the way I learn about it portrays it badly, or in a problematic light, and that's how I'll know it, in this problematic way. And what if no one ever corrects me? What if I go through life thinking this horrible wrong thing, that could hurt people I know, and I just.. die that way? With these thoughts in my mind? Having passed them on, even, to family, or children, or other friends? What if I'm part of spreading bad things to more and more people?
As I get older, these thoughts loom in my mind, but the difference is, the difference will have to be, that I can trust myself not to just believe the first thing I hear. I need to have a filter, somewhere between my eyes and my ears, and where my beliefs go, and I can run new information through that filter, and it can help me figure out if it's wrong, or right, or, uh, really super-off. I need to let my beliefs grow, and I need to let my feminism evolve, and I hope to hurt as little people as possible on the way.
Did that make sense? Any and every thought welcomed.
xx,
C
Oh I completely agree! The more I get into feminism, the more I seem to disagree with other feminists. I've come to a decision that that is exactly how it should be. Without discussion and conversation our ideas would not be able to develop and grow, and the more people question me, the more I question myself, which avoids me becoming complacent in my views.
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