I am interested in ending all oppression, including my own. Even though I am wealthy, white, and physically and emotionally able, most of the time I just… can’t. This is because I am a woman, and, when it comes to the marginalized, teeechnically I am a part of this group—thanks, Kimberlé Crenshaw! But don’t get me wrong—as grateful as I am to the women who paved the way before me, actualizing change is not as simple and easy as they made it seem. Nevertheless, I am still 110% committed to making my life and the lives of everyone, across all intersections of oppression and every marginalized social stratification, free from and unburdened by the patriarchy.
The other day, for instance, when I went out for drinks with friends, I managed to successfully monopolize the conversation for an entire 45 minutes discussing issues disproportionately facing women today. In a moment of extreme passion, I threw my drink in the face of a passing waiter and exclaimed, “If women did not have to face such high beauty standards, we would have time for other pursuits deemed valuable by capitalism!”
Who knows if any marginal change came from this act of public defiance, or whether the alienation of my friends really does count as a form of social resistance. But what I do know for sure is that, when it comes to eliminating the hurdles women must jump over so that they are able to delight in the fruits of waged labour and the thrills of temporary gratification, my level of determination knows no bounds.
I have found, however, that this personal propensity for change is very much at odds with the choices I make in my everyday life. These choices do not necessarily have anything to do with the patriarchy, but rather with a perverse inclination to self-sabotage that is almost equally as harmful (if not more so) to my ability as a woman to self-actualize!
For example, I have noticed that I am not only uninterested in streamlining my mornings, but that I also like to make life harder for myself in avoidable ways. During my commute to work, for instance, I often wait until the bus has arrived to both put on my mask and search for my bus card within the labyrinthesque reaches of my tote bag. In the ten minutes beforehand, I usually become aware that I should prepare myself for the possibility that the bus should, say, arrive. However, I always find something better to do, such as wondering if I will ever learn my times tables. And then, when the bus does arrive, I am forced to fasten my mask and dig through my bag at a standard of athleticism more characteristic of a low-level tennis match.
Some might conjecture that my procrastination stems from an inability to confront challenges, a result of being cushioned from all hardship throughout my entire life. But what I have discovered through processes of unlearning and relearning is that my self-sabotage is more rooted in a lack of self-confidence due to—you guessed it—being a woman. So sure, maybe I would prefer to scroll through Instagram than buy an NFT, no matter how valuable and non-fungible they are to our communities. But that is not because I am bad at creating change in society; it is because society made me that way. Now go and think about that at happy hour.