enough people have said this and better than me about how men like obama, & how they see/ speak of women, correlation to future career as war criminal, and ofc, obama revealing himself to be a quintessential *male feminist* is not as surprising as it is stomach-turning but really

there's thesis equivalent stuff to unpack in that incel-energy excerpt from Obama's memoir but i am just stunned by how common this is & how unaddressed it goes in most spaces - who is thinking critically about dating cultural practices? how is *picking up girls* a thing at all?

how normalised is entrenched misogyny in our cultural contexts that this fmr 'liberal darling' president, who prolly had people poring over his draft, felt comfortable revealing it. ofc this is the kind of man who will win multiple elections. ofc anyone can be a feminist now.

when feminists say personal is political, its decried as being devoid of structural critique, which is fair. however structural critique doesn't seem to be engaging with interpersonal dynamics, and psychosexual reality in Shulamith Firestone's words. both need to go hand in hand.

sometimes it stuns me how much people don't seem to consider the emotional consequences of growing up and living in a culture that produces cis men with truly sociopathic tendencies in how they approach women wrt sex, without remorse or reflection, is terrifying in its normalcy

came off yet another convo with a female friend scarred by a dating experience - shaming you are subject to if you refuse to be sexually available, exchange of bitter stories of the levels of mental + emo gymnastics we undertake to secure emotional + physical safety re cismen

how much energy does it take to constantly be on your guard? how low is the bar when the expectation is that the person be half-decent, really? in this patriarchal phallocentric culture internalises fucked up values, how do you develop a healthy relationship with your own body?

long-legged, smooth-skinned, ethereal - fuck obama really - fuck cis masculinity - this fragile edifice of awfulness at the root of oppression - these horrific and brutal standards of beauty harms so many people, such a lasting eviscerating violence on your own body and mind.

material conditions produce psycho-social pathways, and patriarchy while enables entitlement & impunity in cismen, it also grooms women in subtle & unsubtle ways to normalise & overlook predatory + shitty male behaviour. exceptions abound but the when the bar is par rock bottom

don't even want to touch what this does to one's own sexual preferences, desires, feelings, how does one even begin, its so horrible - people talk about rape & sexual violence, what about the numerous small & big boundary violations so routine you don't even count them anymore?

how does this affect one's ability to trust & be vulnerable? what if you cannot afford or access therapy? millions of women & gender minorities cannot access necessary care - how do you negotiate a dominant sexual culture that is rooted in shame, quantification & dehumanisation?

many women have talked abt this, but one memory of how trauma affected me was as a 20 year old on an internship with a random classmate working in a tiny enclosed cubicle, i had a panic attack - he was at the door blocking my way - nothing happened but I couldn't breathe anyway

i didn't know it was a panic attack, for 2 hrs on the bus ride home i wrote down my feelings over how i live, all the ways i map the exits to every space i walk into with a man. now i think about what a lifetime of encountering unsafety & violence does is destroy comfort + trust

i think a lot about women in cities, about women in public spaces, of women just going out - and in therapy i talk about how I struggle with being perceived, that even physically walking down the road requires a range of soothing techniques, plug music, wear a coat, avoid eyes.

i was assaulted by a 70 year old male neighbour coz my cat jumped on their roof - i moved houses. two cops on a bike harassed me & a friend on our way home from a late night walk 2 months back - haven't taken a walk alone or with anyone since. these i remember, idk what i forgot.

impulse underlying violence against women & gender minorities, & the notion of 'picking up girls' is one & the same - you see an entire class of people as not human enough, not full persons, deserving of equal dignity, value & complex inner worlds & feelings. only degree varies.

what is absolutely rotten in this dilution of feminism to a point - anyone can be feminist! - is this notion that somehow some cismen are exempt, as if political allyship creates an escape valve from a lifetime of patriarchal socialisation - lmao one can only laugh, weakly.

also funny is the notion that being erudite, as if reading widely in depth, is some of sort of talisman from this too, knowledge + rationality are critical, but also have limits - demands for psychosocial edu at every level + comprehensive sex edu are incredibly important.

rage / grief tweeting but lol suddenly remembered this not at all horrible almost-decent guy i met in my first month in Bangalore who was constitutionally incapable of not referring to women as 'chicks.' I asked him not to & he sincerely tried, just couldn't, the whole date. hmm.

realised fury also partly traceable to IIT McKinsey ex (lol at younger me) in Delhi who would repeat stuff abt feminist + left politics he heard from me to LSR women on Tinder as his own thoughts, behind my back, while we were dating. I found out by accident, after we broke up.