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Lois Tyson on Patriarchy: I’m recovering rather than recovered

zesticola:

“I call myself a patriarchal woman because I was socially programmed, as are most women and men, not to see the ways in which women are oppressed by traditional gender roles. I say that I’m recovering because I learned to recognise and resist that programming. For me, such recognition and resistance will always require effort — I’m recovering rather than recovered — not just because I internalised patriarchal programming years ago but because that program continues to assert itself in my world: in movies, television shows, books magazines, and advertisements as well as in the attitudes of salespeople who think I can’t learn to operate a simple machine, repair technicians who assume I won’t know if they’ve done a shoddy job, and male drivers who believe I’m flattered by sexual offers shouted from passing cars (or, worse, who don’t give a moments thought to how I might feel or, worse yet, who hope I feel intimidated so they can feel powerful). The point here is fairly simple: patriarchy continually exerts forces that undermine women’s self-confidence and assertiveness, then points to the absence of these qualities as proof that women are naturally, and therefore correctly, self-effacing, and submissive.”

Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide

(via feminismitmakessense)

so much fucking love for this spot-on quote.

(via inherhipstheresrevolutions)

(i feel like this quote isn’t perfect - it really seems to center “women’s” embodied experience and doesn’t seem very intersectional in its analysis - but it’s just one quote from a text i haven’t read)

“i’m recovering rather than recovered.” i still feel this. i had to tell myself this in regards to the purportedly queer-sexpositive-marxistfeminist who made me feel the most ashamed of my sexuality and sex life than anyone else ever had and probably ever will. i was shattered, but telling myself that part of the enormous problem was that we’re still deprogramming, we’re still unlearning this bullshit, we’re still recovering rather than recovered even when we try to center love instead of judgement and shame and hate, helped me stop hating her.

(via garconniere)

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