Ladysplaining

I have heard things similar to your memo my entire life from my family and I hardly believe it. I still don’t. I’d rather be getting my grades up in the next few years. Currently, I have a Bachelor’s in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. I also have an A.A. in anthropology with honors from Foothill College, and an A.A. in creative writing. Like I said, I have to get my grades up. I want to start with my law degree, move on to an M.S. in psychology, and then get my M.D./Ph.d in clinical psychology, psychiatry, neurology, endocrinology, and genetics. That’s a mouthful isn’t it? Yeah it is lots of work.

It is work I’m willing to do. My gender doesn’t come into it. I consider myself gender non-binary, gender non-conforming. I’m not exactly conventional. I’m blunt, straight-forward, and assertive. I also know how to work as a team with people. You might say I’m decidedly unfeminine with how I approach things. My pronoun is person. Gender constructs do not hold me prisoner. My hobbies were martial arts, yoga, and tai chi but a fractured tibia and dislocated kneecap kind of put these on hold until I get my knee back, which I estimate will be November. I’m off the hook seeing my sports medicine doctor. I want to spend my life inventing new meds for schizophrenia, type 1 diabetes, and bipolar disorder, and dare I say it, even OCD. This involves some intense, hard-core chemistry classes. I’m up for the challenge but my pre-med math requirements and physics requirements are scaring me to death. I would like more money for school by now. Job? Coming any time?

I’m addressing heterosexual men and I’m not going to address gay men with a ten-foot pole because this is about straight people and gay men are a different subject altogether since they are less prone to gender roles. Also known as a cisgender person or those who conform to the gender identity they got assigned at birth. I’m not exactly conventional. In high school, I got angry once, and somebody called me a lesbian for this, when I’m in fact straight, although my OCD would make me crazy. It wasn’t until I read a book called The Nice Girl Syndrome: Stop Being Manipulated and Abused and Start Standing Up For Yourself by Beverly Engel that cleared up this messed up misnomer. I broke up with the ex but I have spent the time since amassing 10 years of evidence that I’m straight. I just have many supposedly “masculine interests, ” like math, science, computer programming, and electrical engineering. For these interests, I was called a freak.

I have gotten into writing instead only because it was the easier degree to get and my schizophrenia was not treated properly until 2012. I had untreated pediatric schizoaffective bipolar 1 and OCD my whole life from childhood and I didn’t get meds until I was 20. Medication helps you be levelheaded, and deal with emotions.

Before you accuse women of having biological differences that make them unsuited to technical work, let’s say that men are more biologically impaired than women are. Men are prey to testosterone driven mood swings. They lust after sex more. They have sexual appetites, which cause hormonal imbalances. In other words, they think about sex more, and get cranky when they don’t get any. I propose that men are more victims of their biology than we lowly females. Men have a penis. Women have a vagina. There I said it out loud. Men fall sway to their penis while women have biological differences that allow them to have babies. I say this makes a woman inherently more powerful and capable than a man. It takes enormous fortitude to not let your hormones drive you nuts when you are female. This is why birth control exists. It helps regulate all those wacky hormones. Don’t get all Republican on me for saying this. Medications can help regulate moods too.

It could be incredibly sexist and unfair of me to say that men are biologically inferior to women because of their status as being stronger than women and only able to contribute their sperm to bring life into the world. What happened to all that gender equality that we were supposed to get with Hilary Clinton? It didn’t happen because of enormous sexism from the alt-right. Nobody could stand to see her win. Period. We live in an era where men can’t always get paternity leave due to reverse sexism. This is a fatal flaw in a company if they can’t ask for this simple need to be there for their wives if they bother having a kid. Companies with empathy let their employees have maternity leave or paternity leave.

I have a problem with what you say about empathy. Empathy is social lubricant. De-emphasize empathy. I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why people think the way they do, relying on affective empathy—feeling another’s pain—causes us to focus on anecdotes, favor individuals similar to us, and harbor other irrational and dangerous biases. Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts.” (http://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320) Okay, let’s deconstruct your nonsense. Empathy is important to have in the work place. Empathy is something sociopaths have problems showing. And psychopaths? Forget it. They have none. This is why many are housed in the prison system. What an inflammatory comment to leave on a memo. Empathy is necessary. Reason does not prevail without it. Oh and I suppose women have more empathy than men do? Are you going to say we are naturally wired for it because we can make babies and you men folk only provide the seed?

Like I said, I propose that men are the ones who have the problem, not women. A sociopathic female is just as much trouble as a male sociopath. Are you writhing in discomfort yet? Women are not naturally wired for stuff that men aren’t. There is no biological proof of this. Your sexism is appalling. Did you ever hang out with girls growing up? I’m imagining no, not really. Did your family have bizarre gender rules such as boys not crying at all? I don’t believe anybody needs to conform to the gender of their birth. It is good for you to attempt to break gender rules. You follow your programming too closely. It is time for you to make a break of your gender brainwashing and try to learn to sew, or cook. Or even take care of a child.

Men are sway to feeling horny a lot if gender stereotypes are believed. A solid meritocracy does not involve allowing minorities and women to get special treatment. You are hired at Google for having skills or great knowledge not your other characteristics. You got fired for trying to say that women are biologically weaker than men. I suppress menstruation because my mental illness symptoms flair up. Living without it is quite nice. I mean some Christian companies want to cut birth control access. All birth control really is, is a dose of hormones that represses the menses. It doesn’t encourage sex. It isn’t dirty to take pills. Also, I submit that it takes enormous strength to survive pregnancy. For those inept in biology, let me ladysplain. Pregnancy is hard work. It is 9 months of aggravation, torture, and stress. Not something I want to put myself through. Nope. I’m child-free.

I have had to deal with nasty breeders telling me it isn’t my choice to not put myself through something I see as coming from the depths of hell. I have schizophrenia and my parents are narcissistic. You really think my kid might have those traits unless I can use science to remove those genes and insert other traits. Narcissists have empathy problems. They charm people but they really struggle to get inside somebody’s head. Imagine a whole generation born without disability or mental illness. Disability can be treated in the early stages of pregnancy. This is my life’s work, it’s why I realized I need to study genetics.

In the end, we need to work on establishing an era of global peace and prosperity. There needs to be an end to war, racism, and homophobia. People need to stop practicing injustice, and to start practicing justice, and tolerance. Men and women have to start treating each other as equals, not one better than the other. It’s okay for men to pitch in with the work of childrearing. Can we have empathy for all? Can the world change? Are we going to have a future? My insulin will keep me around until I become a judge or maybe I will have found the cure for diabetes by then. I would distribute this treatment free for anybody who wants it regardless of what health care system we have. We are equals, deal.