Would women be equal to men without men’s support?

Why would women want to subject themselves to the absolutely shitty deal of being “equal to men”?

And before you go there … no, I am not saying that men are lesser than women. I’m saying that patriarchy and toxic masculinity and assorted other bigotries, institutionalized and personal, combine to make men lesser than they could fully be as humans. Those sociological constraints severely limit and diminish men in so many ways that any freedom-loving individual would run screaming from that “equality.”

What feminists and people that love social justice mostly want is the freedom to determine their own lives and own choices apart from anyone else’s conception of propriety. In other words, why should I have to vet my humanity through any group, institution, or tradition in order to have my human rights respected?

And yet that’s exactly what we have done and still do regarding (a) marriage equality, (b) interracial relationships, (c) abortion, (d) freedom from religious proselytizing in public schools, (e) bathroom access {really?}, (f) health care, (g) clothing options, (h) equal pay, (i) sex, (j) reproductive health and a host of other issues.

Women do not have to confer with men or anyone else to exercise their human rights. They inherently have those rights regardless of what men think of them. Considering the fucked-up things we do to and expect of men, I wouldn’t want to be “equal” to men’s traditional conception of masculinity, either. I’d want to come up with a truly expansive, limitless, and all-encompassing concept of freedom for all gendered and non-gendered people. I’d want the freedom to critique and conquer traditional ideas of masculinity, femininity, and gender.

Women want their full human rights respected. They shouldn’t have to get approval from a committee to do that. Conversely, men shouldn’t be granted privileges that other genders don’t get. I now recognize that the so-called traditional “superiority” of my gender is self-limiting bullshit for me and an impediment for women and everyone else.