Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Silver View Post
But, at the core, isn't that was all this is about...having the freedom to determine what is right for you without:
  • subordinating your beliefs to someone else's mold
  • subjecting yourself to someone else's interpretation/perspective of things around you?


Forget gender...isn't that at the core what freedom is?
I think a lot of the liberation movements (of all strands) have been about realizing how "what we want" is actually constructed. It's not a conspiracy or anything, it's just that the world already exists by the time we're born and there's lots of expectations on people about how they're supposed to behave and be treated. 2That's the way we do it."

These expectations are based on gender for a large part and on other things too, call them race, class, ability, etc. You realize that these expectations are there when you break them, and you're negatively sanctioned for it. When you're clearly made to feel that you do not belong somewhere, or that you are not behaving in a way that's appropriate for you. I felt a lot of that when I was in a position of leadership in a political organization for a while (it ended in me resignating). I felt that (less so) when preparing to get married and feeling that I was out of place, not because I was a woman but because my culture was a bit different from that of the person I was marrying. (It did not end and it works nicely despite the difference.) As long as one behaves exactly as expected, nothing is noticeable. When things start differing from the expectations, you're in for a ride. And we live in a world with lots of difference now, international mobility, different languages, etc. so there's lot of people feeling that kind of "friction" all the time. (We need some Chamois Butt'r.)

To say the least, expectations are not distributed evenly, and a lot of people are getting the wrong side of the deal. Often they don't really notice it. Many religions are built around the acceptance of one's place in the system and the hope that the next time around (next life, or in heaven) it will be a better place. Changing the deal is largely impossible to fight on one's own, because the lines are so deeply drawn. That's why collectives form.

So what is real freedom?

For my own life and ethics, I've accepted that there are expectations that I will simply fulfill, gender roles I will take, etc. because they are so deeply carved into me. I'm not sure if that's freedom, but I need to pick my struggles, and freedom is not my priority I guess. There are other expectations that I really don't think are right, and I do my part to inch toward change. I feel like a slug trying to get to Ushuaïa, and I'll probably get run over before I get there.