It was just a casual talk between me and my male friends after we've met this one cute girl which faith had made her our friend’s sister in law. Let me describe about me and these male first. I know these guys since I was fourteen. Some of them even had becoming my friends before that era. In short, I consider them as brothers I've never had. And sometimes they “forgot” that I’m a female. I think we’ve already crossed the boundaries of some things considered as taboo, like dirty jokes, sort of things.
So, back to the casual talk, I kind of forgot what was the trigger because I was busy replying SMS from my mom – also tweeted one or two times. :P
These guys thought the girl is cute but she wore too much make-up for a girl at her age. After blablablas, I join the convo and my first comment was, “yaudahlah” or in English it could represented as, “let it be”. I don’t know if it’s because of my tone or what (because my point was like “let her be, guys, is not like she walking around, topless”), but then Agung replied “oh, there’s a female voice. Tia is often being sensitive if we talk about gender.”
I kind of confused at that time, and when I already at home I want to laugh remembering his statement. Like, really? Am I sound like overly sensitive feminist? Ok, first, I don’t consider myself as feminist. Not because I think feminist is some kind of bad status, but because the knowledge of gender issues I’ve read or watched or heard wasn’t enough so people can called me “feminist”. I like reading news related to it and sometimes discussing it, but feminist is more than that.
About being sensitive for some cases, I don’t see any problem with that. Why? Because if we talk about gender issue, we can still find problems that female should or must face. From discrimination, domestic violence, Female Genital Mutilation, until Honor Killing; those problems still happen. The thing I considered as weird is, when people misread a female that has a strong interest about gender issue, or a feminist, as a person that potentially could turn into some male hater.
A good friend that also a feminist once told me, that feminism for her is about Equity, not Equality. I agree with her. Is not about beating male or take off bra or don’t want to get married and have kid. Trying to make male into lower position is like, “girls, what’s the point of fighting, if winning is about being like those people whose actions you hate?” Change the system, that’s the most important thing.
That statement about me being sensitive didn’t bug me. I found it’s more entertaining and lead me to another writing to post on blog. After all, few minutes later we found out that NOBODY in that car that gave comments about that girl know her age, precisely. And eventually, Agung said that the girl is pretty and girls with thick eyebrows attract him, most of the times. Hahahaha. So yeah, I think you can conclude THE POINT of the talk. It’s not the make-up or gender stereotyping, but the thick eyebrows on that cute face. Voila! :D
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| image from here |
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