Poking my nose in here a year later, while rereading, to point out that 12-15 year old girls are often taller than 12-15 year old boys! Women get their growth spurt earlier in life, and it’s not uncommon for them to shoot past their male peers in their tweens and early teens, and then be overtaken in height again when the boys’ adult growth spurts kick into gear in their late teens and early twenties. So a slightly taller chassis for a gender-aligned Sulla wouldn’t be at all illogical. ; )

yeah I am

I…have to admit this weirded me out a bit. I mean, I’m glad to hear from this kind of perspective – unusual enough to be revealing, and worth a reminder that we shouldn’t overlook it. And it’s certainly true that I intensely dislike abusive behaviour excused on the pretext that it’s all ‘feminism’ or ‘punching up’. Nah. Compassion is still a thing, people. I do think that anger is a reasonable response to mistreatment, but I also think it’s easy for activists of any sort of any political stripe to end up thinking ‘if I’m angry for some reason, I necessarily have a point’.

But. In my experiences, a) VERY few feminists, even vocal feminists, get like that; and b) the very REASON why I know that ‘gender can never be assumed’ (you cannot look at someone and KNOW they’re cis! How could you?) is thanks to my feminist friends. And I’m from a mixed background and a minority religion but I ‘pass’ for extremely WASP-y, and most of the people who have been the most careful NOT to assume anything about my ethnicity/background/etc. are my feminist friends. And I have a lot of feminist friends.

The idea that feminists are little more than man-haters is dismissive and age-old and usually undeserved, at least in my opinion. Where did the author find so many people that convinced her to rely on convenient everyday strawfeminists as part of her argumentation? Did she REALLY take a gender studies course? If so, where did the lingering misconceptions come from? Anyway, I’m not so much angry as baffled and left feeling sorry that the feminist people in her world weren’t more awesome. :(

I definitely am

That’s a fantastic read. As a straight cis male it’s pretty rare that we’re allowed to express opinions on certain matters, especially when you’re white. I can only imagine how much more difficult if would be if you didn’t even identify with the gender you’re catching all the flack for being.

It’s a big part of why I say I am an egalitarian, though that still gets me into arguments about what feminism or men’s right activism is. I do understand that both movements are about equality, but both banners get hijacked by people carried away with more anger than understanding leading to people who claim to want the same things fighting over talking points rather than working towards equality.

Thank you so much for posting this.

OH NO I HAD NOT REALIZED THAT… Aaaaawwwwww!!!!!!