It's Baffling And Enraging When You Go On Digging Deep And Find Out These Things - Tumblr Posts

language has bias in it; and often we don't recognize it unless we're very close to it.

i am funny. i feel confident about that. my brother will make the same exact jokes i make - and he is called funny. i'm more often called "sassy", despite the fact i rarely actually talk back. i don't even use sarcasm as much as he does - if you actually look at the jokes i'm making, i am not sassy. but i am femme-presenting.

i googled it once. it is supposed to mean lively, bold, feisty. all of these are less demeaning than the ever-feminine sass. it feels kind of stupid to be annoyed by that simple word.

i'm a nag, also, if i'm being honest. i nag. in my body, nagging is whenever i remind someone repeatedly to do something for me that they are not-doing-currently. in the past, with boyfriends, i've felt myself become hyper-annoying. "please," i'd say. "this is the third time i've asked this week. please just do the dishes. i don't have time in the morning." this is nagging.

i can't actually feel comfortable with the idea i might be smart. i often say i'm clever or fast or quick-witted. i will shrug and say i'm well-read and i got lucky in education. smart people are doctors. smart people don't choose an art as their career. smart people don't look or act like i do. and they don't let their life be ruined by their adhd, not like i have, i know that for certain.

it came to my attention about 10 years ago that there's a racist paradigm in writing of lightness/whiteness as "pure" and darkness/blackness as "associated with crime". i had just gotten out of high school and hadn't really been exposed to critical reading yet. i took a long look at my own work and started to be very, very careful about what descriptions i applied to "good" and to "evil." it was important to me to continue this research - to make sure that i actually listened to what i was saying; and how i was saying it. i won't always be aware of the connotations/origins of a word - there are thousands - but i always take the critique whenever one i missed is shown to me. i understood - okay, this is the work that i should do and take care in. and the work is ongoing. there is no "final line" to undoing one's societal learning.

but. despite all this. despite all the academic application and the research and the logical actual knowledge: i allow the language inside of me.

i know i'm not pretty. i know i am also not thin, i'm average (which is to say, to most people - i'm not pretty). i am not graceful, delicate, or "wife material". i am shrill and grating (feminine connotation), i am loud (feminine connotation), i am immodest. i am a feminist (which is to say, to most people - i am going to cause a problem on purpose).

i know each of these might not worry other people - they can be loud on purpose. they have a roguish charm - there's no such thing for them as being immodest.

a few days ago a person i had just met gave me a strange look, laughing at something i said. "you know," he cocked his head, "for a woman, you're really... brazen."

there are people out there who would have taken that as a compliment.