The Emotional Rights of Women
A rant
I want to shout this everywhere! This: women and girls have emotional rights that the patriarchy and gender socialisation keeps a secret from them. Being a woman doesn’t mean you have to look after everyone else instead of yourself, and you can learn how to give yourself permission to live life for you.
Women, still to this day, take on the majority of emotional labour and kin-keeping roles in society because intergenerational sexism persists in gender socialisation, and women are not aware that they don’t have to do it! They are taught that it is their responsibility to make sure everyone else is happy and supported, but there’s a secret — that it’s not their responsibility… and they have emotional rights that they are often unaware of.
Gender socialisation, patriarchy, religious beliefs, and the media all contribute to keeping emotional rights a secret from women and girls. This secret benefits patriarchy and upholds systems of unequal power as these systems are built by those who profit from women’s unpaid work.
Women end up feeling like crap; they’re tired and often numb inside. They bitch to their friends about everything they have to do, they try some self-care or go on a retreat, but nothing works; they feel better for a short while when they try harder but still have deep unhappiness inside, and they…
