fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2530 ]

[ SECRET POST #2530 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2530 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Doctor Who (gif)]

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14. [SPOILERS for family guy]

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15. [SPOILERS for Doctor Who]

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16. [WARNING for abuse]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #361.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

DA

You've obviously got a bit of internalized mysogyny or sexism going on, which is frankly pretty normal. I understand that this new turn is making you uncomfortable but I think you should spend some honest time reflecting on why you feel the need to identify so strongly as "masculine" and why it bothers you so much to enjoy "girly" things. Because it's just a hobby. If you like dolls it doesn't make you "girly", it just means you like dolls. It doesn't change anything about who you are.

Hey, it's their identity and they can have a crisis about it if they want to.

They can! I don't think I ever said that they couldn't. It's obviously something that's upsetting them and they can freak out all over the place, but in doing so I also think they should really take a hard look at why this one thing is creating an identity crisis.

*squints at you*

Since when is it okay to start psychoanalyzing real people over the internet, Anon?

Since the beginning of time? *squints back at you* Are you new here?

Okay or not, everybody does it. Possibly literally everybody.

Always.

Anon was just offering advice?? You rather OP just keep on feeling guilty about their new hobby without someone trying to offer new insight?

tbh, I don't think OP has internalized anything. Some women just don't like girly things. They don't think they're bad or inferior, they're just not interested in them *shrug*

You don't think labeling a subset of things "girly", which means feminine, and disliking them based almost entirely on the label, to the point where she has to pretend like the things she likes are really masculine, is problematic and indicative of something internalized? If she had no internalized misogyny, enjoying something that many people might call "girly" shouldn't be an issue. It should simply be a happy exception to her own rule.

This.

Nope. Like I said, not liking something doesn't mean you hate it or it's bad, it just means you aren't interested in it. Therefore OP (and other people) just isn't interested in things labeled as "girly".

According to OP's reply above, the secret is more like, "I've always preferred masculine things, so liking this feminine thing is new and foreign to me", and it seems like she's just wondering "Why do I like this when I've never preferred anything girly before?" so it sounds like she's a little "OMG" about it because it's different for her. Which makes sense if you (general you) have a sudden interest in things you've never been interested in before.

"It should simply be a happy exception to her own rule."

I'm sure it can be a happy exception to her rule eventually, but right now it sounds like she's still trying to figure out why she suddenly likes this particular thing, so she hasn't reached that point yet. There's nothing wrong with that since figuring yourself out is part of what life is all about.

and it seems like she's just wondering "Why do I like this when I've never preferred anything girly before?"

The wording of this secret makes it sound like so much more than that, though.

...not liking something doesn't mean you hate it or it's bad, it just means you aren't interested in it.

Too bad the OP herself says she wants to hate the DOLLS she's fallen in love with, which suggests pretty strongly how she feels about other dolls and girly things. She's not just surprised and mystified that she likes the dolls--she's appalled, because now she's picked up some of those icky girlygirl cooties, and how will she be able to look down on the rest of us now?

"Look down on the rest of us"? Oh, come on: projecting much. There is nothing whatever to suggest this is part of her worldview.

C'mon, that's pretty delusional. She's so terrified of liking girly things she insists on calling the dolls "action figures". She repeatedly emphasized that she's masculine, and thereby implies it's an important label to her to be masculine and NOT feminine not just by identity and appearance, but even in name. That is, she implies she'd dislike anything if it were arbitrarily referred to as 'girly' or even 'girlier' than something else.

She doesn't seem slightly confused as you're implying. She says more than once that she HATES this. And herself. There's really nothing mild about her phrasing--she seems actually terrified and phobic of girly things.

This, seriously.

"I don't normally like girly things but I love these dolls" does not indicate internalized misogyny. "I don't like girly things but I love these dolls and I can't understand why because I've always hated dolls and now I'm having an identity crisis over it because the idea of being girly makes me ill" is.

I don't know many people who flip the fuck out over suddenly liking something they've never been interested in before, unless there's something else going on besides not being interested in it.

I'm going to respond to this as someone who used to be a bit like OP, insisting that I didn't like girly things and making that a big part of my identity, and while I'm still not as conventionally feminine as many, my hobbies and tastes are much more varied than they used to be. And from that perspective, yes, this does smack of internalized misogyny.

Not trying to attack OP. We all have it to some degree, I think. Just agreeing with the anon who said she should look at why she's having this issue and maybe come to terms with it because 1. it doesn't need to threaten who she is, and 2. it's indicative of a problematic attitude.

I used to be like that, too. I prided myself in not being "like those other girls" that liked those "girly things".

Fortunately, I grew out of that attitude. Now I just like what I like, regardless of whether it's "feminine" or "masculine".

*high five*

Me too. Right down to clothes. All my shirts were about 3+ sizes too big (I usually wear a small shirt, sometimes medium, and all my shirts in high school were XL or larger), and all my jeans were super baggy (Showing high school photos to my ex, he commented "Man, both of us could probably stand in one of those pant legs). Often commented on those "fake" girls who always wore make-up and how much better I was for being a tomboy and rejecting the stereotypical "girly" things. Eventually I grew out of it and started wearing girlier clothes (or, you know, clothes that actually fit me), and realized that hey, if you wear make-up, spend an hour on your hair in the morning, and aren't a horrible person, you're pretty cool and I'm not better than you because I don't do those things, and now I actually really enjoy getting my hair/make-up done for special occassions (I still can't style my own hair into anything but liberty spikes, and unless it's an event that calls for heavy eyeliner and red lipstick and nothing else on my face, I'm totally incapable of doing my make-up, but I do like it when other people do. I've even started getting manicures now and then, because dammit, it's fun when I have awesome designs on my fingers).

I was the saaaame, I wore boy clothes for years and even had super short hair, never wore makeup or jewelry, etc.

Now, I still don't wear makeup because frankly I love the way my face looks without it and for a number of other reasons, but I love love love nail polish and earrings and my (now fairly long) hair. I like clothes too.

I agree!

I was the same too. Now I just enjoy both feminine and masculine things too. It's so much more fun.

It definitely is! I can like whatever I like and it's all awesome.

I'm butch *and* a geek woman, and have had this unhealthy attitude as have a lot of women I know, and yes, there is definitely some internalised misogyny about it. Without knowing the OP, OP's wording is very much in accordance with how many less feminism women think who have grabbed onto the strategy of distancing themselves from sexism by looking down on girly things. OP's crisis is something many of us have had to confront at one time or another.

It's common to react against something by doing the opposite - and then ideally learn as you grow to ignore the backlash and do whatever the fuck you want.

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