captain-liddy:

A lot of times when ppl talk about a woman’s strength or the strength that women have collectively, they’re actually talking about women’s capacity to take a lot of shit. Which has actually been foisted on women relentlessly and continually for centuries.

So like. It sounds disingenuous to me. Essentially ppl are saying, Nice job absorbing the physical and emotional violence consistently hurled at you since birth. As if there were the option to escape it. As if the attempt to escape it weren’t met with even more violence.

“This woman is so strong. She forgave her husband’s infidelity. She sacrificed everything for her family.” The takeaway from that is that for a woman, societally accepted strength involves behaving as if your own needs and feelings and agenda are meaningless in comparison with everyone else around you.

It’s false, hollow praise. It’s more manipulation.