these last few days, I’ve really been close to losing my mind. I’m back to doing history readings for my degree, but since I’ve dived into radical feminist writings, it’s like my eyes have been open to something horrible and I can’t close them, and now I see just how pervasive misogyny is at all levels of historiography. Even attempts to give women “agency” in history just seems to be a glossing over of the patriarchal norms that essentially backed these women into a corner, leaving no truly free options. 

But it makes me feel like I’m insane, that I’m the only one questioning how free these choices really were. I’ve been reading Aphrodite’s Tortoise: The Veiled Women of Ancient Greece and I kind of want to throttle the author who seems really defensive of the idea that women covering their faces is a sort of freedom.  I know I’ve talked about modern veiling and modesty cultures in the past, and yes, I get it, not being perceived by men can be great sometimes, but it’s still dehumanizing and about control. And this isn’t even getting into how voyeuristic Ancient Greek art really was. And now I have to see Judith Butler cited in a paper about women and suicide in the Ming-Qing period, and I think I'm going to have a stroke. 

Maybe I’ve just got my radfem goggles on too tight, but I think there’s a delicate line between recognizing that historical women were real people with agency who made choices, and erasing and excusing the social and cultural pressures that gave them their limited options and generally prevented them from living as fully as they could.

and this isn’t even addressing the blatant misogyny that has no qualms about hiding itself that makes me want to go feral.  

also how can I engage with group discussions on these topics without looking like a lunatic????? I feel like I am going genuinely insane here, and I have seminar on this shit in two hours. Send help.