gag me

We all know how much The Colonic loves PostSecret for the sheer thrill of learning the intimacies of strangers--and also for analyzing social constructions and culturally embedded horse shit.

This secret makes me want to throw myself off of a building. Please--treat me differently because I have a vagina! There is nothing I love more than the vestigial organs of legally-sanctioned sexism. Oh, the days when I was actually only property, and was bought and paraded like a doll! I love the watered-down socially praised remnants of such a life.

Gag me.

I prefer when the first person to reach a door holds it open for those to follow. That is the pragmatic/polite approach.

But while I am on the topic--let me just vent a little and shed light on my own prevailing indoctrination. As a person with a vagina who prefers not to be differentiated based on my genitals, I take issue with men holding the door open for me simply because I am a woman (and not based on convenience, who got there first, etc).

At the same time, it happens nearly every day that a phallus feels the need to assert his maleness and awkwardly reach over to get to a door first, or wait for me to exit an elevator when he is ahead of me, etc...and I feel like I just have to take it, pass a sweet smile, and say thank you. On a rare occasion, if I sense a person is extra-friendly, I can make a joke to shed light on the fact that discrimination offends me, but more often than not I feel that it would be bad for the overall movement to offer some sort abrupt commentary that was likely be misconstrued as rude and further stigmatize women favoring equality.

But that is not what weirds me out.

What is bizarre is that when I say "thank you," I subconsciously switch into some stupid cutesy voice--the same one that comes out when I talk to parents or extended family--and I can't help but think it's still in there. That need to enact a specific form of culturally accepted femaleness just comes out on auto-pilot sometimes, and it grosses me out.