Feminism, Revisited.

“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”  - Samuel Johnson, the epigraph of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“If the feminine issue is so absurd, is because the male's arrogance made it "a discussion” ― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

Yes, Misters Johnson and Thompson both wrestle with the underlying plague of mankind- the burden of existence as a sentient being. Learning to navigate the existence of consciousness and metacognition on top of simply existence itself is something many great thinkers have come to such varied conclusions over. We can accept one of myriad solutions, or not, and negate the problem through suicide or excessive drug use.

I’ve beat the fuck out of this dead horse for decades. So now I turn to the question of what relieves us of the burdens of womanhood; the burden of being defined by a culture that does not see your kind as an equal participant (no, not really, especially when sexual dimorphism dictates that there is an exploitable inequality). As many women would acknowledge grudgingly, there’s an unspeakable level of domination that we pretend to equalize through other means, such as equal opportunity under the law. Let this be clear: equal opportunity does not guarantee equal outcomes.

We need not be defined as woman. To do so is to mark us as abnormal, different, non-man. We need to re-embrace female-ness. What it means to live as females, whether you come to that realization through actually being born with a vagina or not (and yes, that’s a dig leveled against TERFS. That sort of categorical thinking is bullshit and quite possibly the least feminine thing possible, hypocrites). My suggestion is to start with accepting our submission as part of accepting our great, untapped power to do just that – accept.

Sitting in general isolation from the rest of society thanks to a pandemic, I am transported back to November 2012, when Hurricane Sandy ripped through Monmouth County, leaving homes leveled, power lines destroyed, roads blocked and communication intermittent. Society was at an absolute standstill for over two weeks and, for many, disrupted for much longer than that. Many railed against the uncertain times by hiding out, hating every minute. For others, acceptance was the only way to move forward. It was either get over not having washed hair and lend a hand raking out someone’s house of debris, or sit miserably until some degree of normalcy was restored. But, what if “normal” was forever different? Acceptance of a limitation - frailty, mortality and uncertainty – is a negative power. Like negative rights, negative power marks the importance of not letting an externality affect your inner self.

To embrace femaleness is to embrace negative power. No one is affected by your female nature and they cannot take it away from you. It asks for nothing from anyone. Being a woman, in a sense, does because to embrace being a woman is to embrace the trappings of what others conceive of as defining a woman. There is not an inherent good to being a woman over being female, as someone who is defining this as inclusively as possible, female can be adopted by anyone, regardless of biological sex or adopted gender (or lack thereof).

For all people, regardless of sex/gender, start small – you don’t have to go right to accepting your own mortality – work up to it. Accept not racing through a yellow light and having to sit for two minutes at a yellow light. Accept that creamer is all gone and you have to use milk. Have your day not ruined by expectations that are sky-high. Feminism is for all the Lebowskis out there. Accept and feel no shame.

“Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with absolute truth.”

― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex