Captains, I hear you. I've done a lot of that shower self-talk myself. "Self, you have a woman's body, be proud of it! Love your body! Don't listen to stupid stereotypes that tell you there's only one right kind of woman. Just be who you are! You can be any kind of woman you want!" Except, of course, the not-a-woman kind. The kind that is, actually, a man.
I've always considered myself a hardcore feminist. I was raised that way, in a generation where the dominant theory of gender was that it was purely a social construct. If no one is intrinsically male or female, then a woman wanting to be a man must want male privilige and think that men are somehow better than women. Well, thirty-something years of trying to live as a woman, and stumbling around like a moose on roller skates, has left me and everybody around me frustrated and confused. Women are awesome and I'd be glad to be one. To actually *be* a woman, that is, not just have the anatomical features that come from two X chromosomes. But, I'm not a woman, and plenty of people have told me that I'm not doing feminism any favors by "trying to act like a man." Except, of course, I'm not trying to do anything of the kind.
I'll happily tear down patriarchy from wherever I stand on the gender spectrum. But it's far more disingenuous for me to stand in a crowd of women and pretend to be one of them, then to admit the truth and stand beside them as an ally. That's my anti-shame potion and, so far (its early days yet), it's working pretty well.
(No hating, folks. This is just me talking for me, I can claim feminism for my own if I want, and I can criticize it without turning in my card. Glad to discuss off list rather than derail if anyone wants to discuss the philosophy.)
