I Heart Being Insufferable, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Insufferability
I’ve been MIA (not the rapper, I wish I was that cool) all weekend and even today. I guess that’s what the end of a semester and seeing your boo for the first time in weeks will do to you. That and Fallout 3, BUT that’s beside the point. Despite my impending finals, it’s back to bloggy business tonight.
I want to make have made a bumper sticker with the catchphrase I ❤ Being Insufferable. With the holiday season here specifically, I'm finding it harder and harder to maintain my commitment to Insufferability. I'm used to being called a cunt, feminazi, or bitch on the internet. Man-hater. Frigid. The gamut, we all know what it entails. I'm always the person who ruins everybody's Facebook kumbayah sessions with gender analysis, or the gal who posts feminist articles that mansplainers just have to comment on (you know how that goes, when women force you to do things just by existing). That, to me, is entertainment. It doesn’t phase me in the least. All right, sometimes I rage at the mansplainers, but in general, it’s fun.
Now, it’s when I’m with the familyfolk that being Insufferable gets to be a sticky issue. I often find that I’m asking myself whether my commitment to Insufferability is worth it when it has caused some disputes. I wonder if compromise is in order, if not speaking up just this once would really be that bad. It’s happened a couple times, somebody flips on Fox News and I start to rage. The fight over those welfare recipients with Escalades and The War on Christmas inevitably ensues, and because I had the audacity to say that Fox News is a political organizing machine with no semblance of journalism left in it, I get pegged as the asshole who starts family fights over the holidays. So, there are times when I haven’t said anything. I’ve put in my headphones and turned Rachel Maddow up to ear splitting levels and kept to myself. But I still can’t help but wonder if it’s not worth the fight.
The conclusion I’ve come to? Yeah, it would be that bad. I think not holding family members accountable for things they say and do does them a disservice. I think the notion of “But we’re family” is weak justification and simply a means of silencing someone that you’d rather not hear from. So if they get mad? Tell them to get over it. You have every right to question them just as they had every right to say what they said in the first place. I have to learn to stop giving a crap if I’m blamed for being Insufferable or ruining shit, and I think the democratic party could take a note on that, too.
I’m tired of seeing people shamed by their families for their Insufferability. I’m tired of being shamed for my Insufferability. The fact of the matter is that it’s a commitment to inquiry that drives progression. That should never be snuffed out or rubbed away by the yammering of those not willing to be inconvenienced. So, for everyone who’s a thorn in the side, an instigator, The Insufferable One, fuck yeah to you. You’re awesome. Keep on being Insufferable. Love it. Use your abilities to inquire and to point out inconsistencies, and use it often. Keep on trolling, and don’t bar any holds. I ❤ being Insufferable, and you know what? You should, too.
And now, because I mentioned her and now would like to listen to "Paper Planes", I present you with a music video by MIA:
Finally – More than giant boners!
Ok, so, I’m a total Alice Paul fangirl. Ever since my first women’s studies class, in which my (wonderful!) first ever women’s studies professor showed us Iron-Jawed Angels and I cried in class while watching it and didn’t even care that I was the only one doing it because I was the only person in there who was super stoked to even BE in a women’s studies class, I have loved Alice Paul. I know this doesn’t make me unique – what feminist DOESN’T love Alice Paul? Lucy Burns? They’re the reason we can vote today, the reason why Hillary Clinton got so close to being president, the reason why Nancy Pelosi was able to put so many cracks in that marble ceiling, and even the reason why Sarah Palin shot to fame so she could badmouth other women –and it’s about damn time they got credit for it.
I’m so happy to see that plans are being made to memorialize the struggle that suffragists went through to get half of the US population to be recognized as more than chattel. It’s bad enough that women are underrepresented in the amount of memorials erected (lol, Washington monument) in their honor anyway, but at least with these plans our feminist foremothers might be able to get the recognition they deserve for going through that Night of Terror.
And, just for the occasion, I bring you a clip from Iron Jawed Angels:
I picked this one for the speech Alice Paul makes around 4:31. Gotta say though, the parade scene is my favorite.
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Feminist to the Rescue! 