er, edit.

We were discussing homosexuality because of an allusion to it in the book we were reading, and several boys made comments such as, “That’s disgusting.” We got into the debate and eventually a boy admitted that he was terrified/disgusted when he was once sharing a taxi and the other male passenger made a pass at him. The lightbulb went off. “Oh,” I said. “I get it. See, you are afraid, because for the first time in your life you have found yourself a victim of unwanted sexual advances by someone who has the physical ability to use force against you.” The boy nodded and shuddered visibly.“But,” I continued. “As a woman, you learn to live with that from the time you are fourteen, and it never stops. We live with that fear every day of our lives. Every man walking through the parking garage the same time you are is either just a harmless stranger or a potential rapist. Every time.” The girls in the room nodded, agreeing. The boys seemed genuinely shocked. “So think about that the next time you hit on a girl. Maybe, like you in the taxi, she doesn’t actually want you to.

—

Andrew Sullivan

Homophobia: The fear that another man will treat you like you treat women. 

Are you kidding? I would think to myself. I would much rather be a girl at this point. Look at how easy it is for them! I’ve been denied by girls my entire life. And I would think that that was a valid thought. To clarify; the idea here was that Women had it easier because they were denying me sexually. This is, of course, the thought process of a pretty stupid 13 year old. The fact that I had self worth squared right over the axis of sexuality should indicate some severe problems to begin with. The idea here is that I had no way of seeing what their lives were like. I had privilege, I didn’t need to. We are at a blind, which is part of what makes privilege so insidious; to recall a great quote from a terrible human, “There are known knowns, and there are known unknowns, but there are also unknown unknowns; things we don’t know we don’t know.

— alxjrvs, male Redditor, in response to a plea from another male redditor to explain feminism

(Source: reddit.com)

Bless this movie for even bothering to explain why a show called “Dear White People” wouldn’t be necessary.

Dear White People (movie trailer)

(Source: lady-jei, via alcoholicgifts)