I couldn’t stop myself from commenting in that damn Metatalk thread about oppressed women again. Some of the latest comments were really just pushing one too many buttons. After writing up a lengthy (lengthy) comment responding to some of the crap they were spewing, I deleted it and changed it to this:

You had a middle-aged woman living in a household in a “traditional” gender role, who does all the cooking, cleaning AND serving (as well as many, many other household/family related activities) right here in this thread, who was more than willing to rationally discuss my life, my values and my experiences with you, but I guess I am just one of those stupid, degraded, downtrodden and trapped housewives who doesn’t know any better and am complicit in my oppression, so what the fuck do I know, right?

Want to know what I have been witnessing in some of the comments here? A huge pile of dicks telling me and women like me how to live our lives and what should make us happy. Talk about patriarchal!

That is what that entire conversation is beginning to look like to me: a whole bunch of dicks waving in the breeze telling me how to live, think and feel and calling themselves feminists while doing it. The men in my own family have never been so bold! They’ve always taken the time to converse with and have in depth discussions with actual women to determine the nature of things and the women’s level of happiness with their lives. Even though my extended family has always been mostly patriarchal with traditional gender roles, I never, not once, saw any man in my family tell a woman what she should do … or make her do something she didn’t want to do … or disrespect any woman whether related to them or not.

My family may be somewhat crazy, and they may drive me completely insane, but I am one of the end products of that family, and personally, I think I turned out pretty damn good. They must have been doing something right.

But then I am one of the OPPRESSED, so I’m sure my opinion on how I turned out doesn’t count for much. I better go ask the penises at Metafilter for guidance.