Seen & Not Heard

    I've been as opinionated as my parents for as long as I can remember. I come from two highly charged, very stubborn, progenitors. I was never entirely sure why they got together in the first place; besides the common familial dysfunction and impoverished background, they were almost complete opposites in both personality and beliefs. In spite the typical problems that plagued a very young marriage with very small children, I blamed the divorce on my perception of their inability to just stop fighting. Even though it was an act of incredible strength for my mother to leave, for a long time I blamed her for not just toughing it out and making it work.
    While being home schooled for the majority of my elementary years by my mother and her promotion of self-education and individuality was great for my intellectual development, it only encouraged my stalwart views and irrepressible quirkiness. These qualities were embraced by my mother, but preteens didn't have the same appreciation. The adjustment to middle school was rough. After being bullied about it (among other things), not only did I stop talking about my beliefs and opinions, I started pretending to agree with the opposite to fit in. More accurately, I just shut up. I was made to be so ashamed of having thoughts on the world around me and beliefs of what was right and wrong, so afraid to be called names because of what I thought and that I thought at all, because I disagreed with the ignorance and disrespect that was status quo around me, I just caved. Inwardly, I just hated myself more.
    I was lucky enough to enter an Arts high school where people were more accepting of my eccentricity. The bullying stopped. I was enthusiastic to be in a place where intellectual, political and philosophical discourse were largely welcome. However, in social situations I was still very careful to show restraint. As has always been fairly typical in high school, it's never been cool to care.
    A different kind of pressure became imminent at this point; for the first time, I became noticed in a romantic way by a select few boys. This became a weight almost as large as the bullying had been before; if I did the right things, it could be great...but there was the potential to screw up if I didn't stay cool. Don't be sensitive. Don't be stupid. Gropes and jokes and kitchen humor weren't a big deal; no one else was offended. Why did it bother me so much? It had been drilled into me by boys, other girls, older men and women, and every piece of media that I had ever encountered, that if I wanted to be liked by the opposite sex I needed to be mysterious. Attractive. I needed to “lure” them in with my silence. In other words, loud, opinionated girls weren't cute.
    At 15, one of my first heartbreaks was because I broke this rule (I wasn't catholic. And I wouldn't have sex with him. Go figure.) No matter how much I wanted to see things his way, subscribing to views that completely opposed everything I felt true in my gut weren't okay and I couldn't make them be. So, after feeling like I ruined everything by being overly sensitive and uncooperative, the silence continued. With my next boyfriend, I was fortunate enough to be in a relationship where discussions and debates were open. We could agree or agree to disagree on most things, but when I broached topics such as double standards within the relationship and gender related issues and stereotypes, things got uncomfortable. When I pointed out the overt sexism that made itself present in social situations with friends, communication broke down. Again, the message was clear: good girls stay quiet.
    I have only recently started the process of convincing myself that not only is being a woman and embracing that this is okay. I can be proud of it. Though it requires a mental vigilance, I am rewiring the instinct to endure internal disquiet in silence and to keep my opinions to myself around men. The right men (the right people in general) will be attracted to someone who stands for themselves and what they believe in. I don't always believe that, but I have to reassert that it's true; There is nothing wrong with me or with asserting my rights when others are attempting to silence them. No one should have to be afraid to tell someone that they don’t think the treatment they are being told to endure is wrong or be afraid of backlash that might result. Though it seems fairly simple to say that, it’s not something we, as a people, have adhered to. I will always be ashamed for not standing up for my right to have opinions and for not defending my beliefs as I was growing up, but the only way to mend that is to not make the same mistakes.
    The more I educate myself on issues having to do with various isms, the more I find it not only right, but imperative that I call others out on their ignorance and insensitivities, assert the truth, and constantly re-evaluate my thoughts and recognize oppressive behavior in others and myself. I hope help generate awareness for the various types of hatred that manifest themselves in the world, society and (though no one likes to admit it) some types of hatred that have become wrongly inherent within ourselves.
    I don't claim to have some terrible life or to be some helpless victim (I wouldn't disrespect what my parents did for me or try to ignore my privilege in that way). I am a fairly average straight, white, ciswoman. I just hope that in relaying my experience, I show younger people like me that there is something very wrong with the social environment that I and countless others have grown up in. I don't want my little sister, in Jr. High and newly thirteen, to think that a society that hates demonstrations of knowledge, of difference, that tells its women to be quiet, mild, apathetic, mediocre and unassuming, does not need to be challenged or changed.