On this #InternationalWomensDay
A list! For the more impressionable women and girls (we get it, we've all had to work through stuff) amongst us:

1.
If a man wants to be like you, this does not redefine you. You do not have to reconceptualize yourself because he wants you to.
2.
If a man wants to be like you, you owe him nothing. No Thing. You don't owe him your words, your notion of your own demographic and you definitely don't owe him your rights.

#InternationalWomensDay2020
3.
You are not a feeling. You are not an identity.
You do not become formless and nebulous because a man wants to be like you.
You do not lose your material reality because a man is upset that he does not have it.
4.
The butchest of butch lesbians is not less of a woman than you. The most facetuned of instagram models is not more of a woman that you.
Being female is not a performance. You don't get more or less points based on how committed you are to femininity.
5.
If anyone tells you your feminism isn't good enough because it doesn't include males, they don't care about you. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU.
They care more about the men who want to be like you and think you should be forced to change yourself for those men.
6.
Your biology is not "reductive".
Male bodies are not the default. If you talk about your body and the differences between yours and a male body, you are not reducing yourself to anything. The people who tell you that you are believe women to be less than men.
7.
The feelings of a woman who does not want males in her spaces are not subordinate to the feelings of a male who wants access.
Women say no for a number of reasons. That "no" is not less important than the reasons a man has for wanting to enter.
8.
Misogyny is misogyny, even if its wrapped in a rainbow flag.
9.
Giving in to the demands of men will not make them thank you, love you or appreciate you. They will demand more.
10.
No male tells you what a woman is. No male tells you what female is, what it feels like and what it consists of.
Women who go along with the idea of men knowing what being female feels like should read number 9.
11.
Men have always had spaces and categories by default.
Women had to struggle for theirs(yes, even toilets)

Any male who tells you you are oppressing him by not letting him into your spaces and including him is practicing the same misogyny that limited women in the 1st place
12. Respect yourself.
Respect other women. Yes, even the ones that people tell you are difficult, loud and annoying.
Everything you have, you have because a woman fought for you. Remember the ones that came before. They gave you everything, often at great personal cost.
13. Please read this one more than once. Please.

When a woman wants to be a man, nothing happens.
Men don't pay any attention.
They do not redefine themselves.
They do not give anything up.
They do not change their language.
They do not adjust their idea of themselves.
Men's categories remain the same.
Nobody attacks their decision to give awards or prizes (like what happened in the case of black girl magic).
Nobody asks them to make room.
Men are not desperately trying to include trans men in the name of equality.
Nobody is redefining medical conditions, or biological truths to accomodate women when they want to be men.
Nobody is trying to control the way men speak about themselves.

When something only affects women, it is not "equality".

Only you are being asked to change everything.
Only you are being told that you have to move over and make room.

On this #InternationalWomensDay, describe yourself accurately. Talk about yourself without worrying about hurting male feelings.

You do not exist to be approriated.
You can follow @therestofus5.
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