Why I’m Still Not Married

Tracy McMillan would have us all believe that women aren’t getting married because we’re clearly doing something wrong, as evidenced by her apparent driving need to write about it not once, but twice.

This entire article (if self-important bullshit puked through a keyboard could, indeed, be called an article) is rife with condescension and a certainty that any woman who disagrees with her clearly just doesn’t realize how right she is yet. It opens with the declarative, “YOU STILL WANT TO BE MARRIED.” Yes, it’s a continuation of her last article, but it raises an eyebrow right from the start; if you’re a woman reading this article, then you mus tbe looking to be married.

The “article” then goes on to accuse women of all sorts of crimes against female-ness, from being a “Mess” to being “Godless”, and outright claiming we need to fix these things if we ever want to get married.

Here’s the thing, Tracy McMillan; I’m not married because I don’t want to be married. (The rest under a cut to save space).

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So, Here’s The Thing

If you’re being excluded by a bunch of people because you said something racist, sexist, ableist, transphobic, homophobic, fatphobic, or any number of things that hurt/offend marginalized people, it’s not because they’re “too uptight” or “don’t have a sense of humor.”

It’s because you’re being a raging doucherocket, and they don’t need to invite that kind of nastiness into their everyday life; especially if it’s something they or loved ones deal with every fucking day, and don’t want to hear it from you, too. It’s because they may need one space where that shit doesn’t get thrown in their face, because the moment they step outdoors they have that disgusting, dehumanizing attitude coming at them from every angle.

And it’s not something you can just shut out. It’s not something that you can ignore. When it’s so pervasive, it permeates every aspect of your life.

But you can minimize your exposure to it, by cutting out people you know are going to be repeat offenders.

And if that’s “too PC” for you, if that’s not something you can handle, if you feel excluded and ignored and marginalized because you’re not allowed to express something that actually hurts someone else and they’ve made the decision not to have that as part of their life,pleasedon’t go whining about how those meanie marginalized-peoples won’t let you into their “club”, and how that makes youjust as oppressedas they are.

It’s not the same damn thing.

“And you DO make a difference by speaking out—screw the naysayers who think that just because you are white doesn’t mean that you can’t speak up about it or say that what is happening is WRONG. You are one of the people who has inspired me to speak out when I see an injustice; these people deserve to see that what they are doing is wrong, and that we won’t tolerate hate. It may be small, but it does make a difference.”

I’m not saying that by virtue of my being white, that I’m not entitled to speak out. On the contrary, the larger culture actually tells me the exact opposite; that my opinion as a white woman matters more than that of a POC, and that I should speak without worry of recrimination (well, outside of other factors that make me less, uh, ‘mainstream’).
My mentioning my whiteness is more realizing that the fact that I can curl up and cry about it, not necessarily because I’m surprised by everything but because it’s not part of my daily experience as a white woman. I could probably do more, but I feel helpless at times like these, because I get overwhelmed with the despair at the…the casualness of this hatred.

A woman is suffering and she’s dropped on the floor. A kid is shot and people claim it was because he was wearing a hoodie and kids who wear hoodies shouldn’t be surprised except no one should fucking die because they wear a hoodie and what the fuck is going on anymore.
Nevermind the problems with the government, the current erosion of women’s rights in this country, the sense that everything’s just falling apart and that everyone’s so apathetic about it.

I could call on my privilege at any time to pretend none of it has to do with me, but I can’t. I just can’t.

But, thank you for contacting me. I appreciate it, I really do. :)

I am weak.

This isn’t a self-deprecating post, this time. I’m a privileged brat, and when the atrocities in this world start rearing up in my face, I want to turn away and hide. I want to hurt, just in the corner, and cry for everyone who has been hurt and killed because of the kyriarchal society we live in.

If I wanted to, I could. Because that’s my privilege. I could try to convince myself “that doesn’t happen as often as they say” or “That’s just one fluke case”, but I know that it’s a widespread systematic abhorrence of humanity.

Those things aren’t about me or my pain or my hurt. I hurt because I was raised to believe that humanity shouldn’t be like this. I was raised to believe in love and the greater community. And that was my privilege as a white person to be taught those lessons, and not be raised in an atmosphere of fear and self-loathing for my race or sexuality as so many others are.

But some days, I hear a woman rasping in agony, dying, or I read justifications for a kid being killed, and it just.hurts.

And I feel weak and helpless. And wish I could do more.