teleen_fiction | I'm A Woman, Not WomEn

I'm a woman. I was born that way and have never had anything but the most fleeting desire (hmmm, I wonder what it would be like to have a penis; shit, my period really sucks) to be anything other than a woman.

I have my own thoughts on feminism. I feel that being a sex worker is the ultimate in feminism, so long as the women involved are given the ultimate power, as they have in every club in which I've worked and as it is when prostitution is legal.

I'm pro-choice (NOT pro-abortion), pro-reproductive rights in every sense (I have a much longer post on this issue that I will eventually share) and against any religion and/or culture that treats women as second-class citizens.

I believe in equal pay for equal work, no glass ceilings and providing reproductive education and HPV vaccines to young women.

Personally, I'd like to be barefoot and pregnant and a housewife, but this doesn't mean that I think less of women who want to be doctors or have other high-powered careers, especially not since technology is making it easier for those women to have reproductive choices (assuming that they want children at all).

I'm into freedom of choice for all women everywhere.

But.

I don't speak for all women everywhere. If I say something stupid or ignorant or hurtful, if I do something stupid or ignorant or hurtful, it shouldn't reflect negatively on my entire gender.

I am a woman, an individual, a person, a human being. I am not an entire gender.

So please remember that when you're speaking to me or about me and say things like, "Women like you..."

There are no other women like me. While I am not a beautiful and unique snowflake, I am still the only one of me in this world.

And I should be judged only based on me, not on the genitals that I happened to be born with.

This sort of judgment is also passed on other marginalized persons, from women to GLBT to PoC to the Irish. It's impossible for an entire group of people to ALL be one thing... other than human, of course. But the human bit is often lost in the shuffle when people are saying, "Well, if you want 'special rights' you have to expect to all be lumped together."

No one in any of these groups wants any 'special rights'. Period. End of argument.

We all simply want equal rights. Truly equal, not just whatever bones happen to be thrown our way.

Human beings all wish to have the same freedoms to choose their own destinies that a privileged MINORITY have always had. It's funny to think of it that way - that the one group that has always had the power is actually the least in numbers and always has been.

It's up to you to decide who really holds the power in this world - captains of industry, the Church, or simply those who have the most money. I'm going with the third option myself, but I could be wrong.

And if I am, it's only me that's wrong, not my entire gender. Or race. Or creed (or lack of creed). It's just me.

I'm a woman, not all women everywhere.

This rant inspired by several conversations, both in rl and online, as well as by the world at large. And by the letter s.