Heaven forbid those "nice" neighbors ever have a mental health crisis of their own or have to deal with a family member having a crisis. 🙄
The light has gone on. I have caught myself feeling angry all. the. time. Angry at men who don't understand maternal and feminine issues and don't want to. Angry at the government. Angry at the healthcare system. Angry at corporations who don't pay equitable wages and provide paid maternal leave. Gah. I've thought from time to time about therapy to "deal with my anger." Now I see...I just need an outlet to make a difference...change the world as much as I can...stand up and stand out for those cannot for themselves.
I have an idea...no way to know how in the hell I'll be able to bring it to life with my meager business experience...but I'm starting the research and conversations today. Thank you.
There’s a difference between being nice and being kind. Being kind involves honesty/sincerity, love for our fellow creatures, and respect and this means it can sometimes be challenging and uncomfortable. Niceness often preserves the status quo and spares feelings, which means it can be superficial and lack authenticity.
I think kindness is inherent in feminism, which strives for equity for the benefit of all.
Being nice keeps the peace, mostly for our own social comfort, while being kind can challenge the status quo for the benefit of others.
I like to cut out quotes to give me quick reminders of new essential ideas. But literally this entire article was getting the highlight treatment.
Thank you for the question! And Zawn for the brilliant insights. It’s very helpful to have feminist information given without the workarounds usually added to sound unassuming or gentle or nice
I find my self coming back to read this brilliant piece of deeply empathatic (written with a sense of humor too) writing so that I could remind myself I don't have to be nice to people who have been abusive to me! Yeah, I can't help but but be nice to them as well! Can't remember all those countless times the phrase "be nice" was drilled into my psyche by parents & teachers alike while growing up. Being nice always is one of most brutal emotionally exhausting things one can do in life...
I understand the worry that the letter writer has. Feminism has been long labelled as being loud, angry and nam hating as a way to try and shut us up. Fortunately, I’ve gotten to an age where I don’t care if others think of me negatively. If I had housing or economic security iI’d also tell my sexist and bullying boss to go take a flying fuck at rolling donut, but sadly as solo parent to a dependent adult child I can’t. I need the money to support us.
For the rest of my life though, I mostly can and do.
Quite honestly I think we are a point where we should be using our anger to burn stuff down, but for now I content myself with trying to help those who need it.
When my close friends have been asked to use one word to describe me, they have used “kind” which made me happy.
You can be a kind and caring person and a strong intersectional feminist at the same time. Calling out and reacting to injustice requires empathy, which kind caring people have lots of.
Being “nice” has gotten me violently, emotionally and financially abused so I am a little more careful about how and why I am being “nice” these days. I will not passively support bad people or things.
I’m having a hard time right now because we are at the tail end of a divorce and of course my stbx thinks my parenting is horrible now that we’re getting a divorce. But my daughter has expressed, even before the divorce, that she doesn’t like having his hugs and kisses all the time and now that we’re getting divorced, he’s taking it personally and keeps telling her to ‘be nice’. Of course I asked him please if you listen to one thing please quit telling her that when she doesn’t want to be touched and went on to explain why. He decided to do it even more, give her hugs and kisses and to tell her to be nice when she keeps saying something. He says he’s her father and he’ll give her hugs and kisses whenever he wants. Yay
All I can do is keep telling her that it’s fine to tell him she doesn’t like his hugs and kisses at times and even if he tells her to be nice, to never ever let anyone even him ever make her feel bad for expressing her feelings about being touched. She has asked me why he doesn’t listen to her….all I could say was that he doesn’t really understand how other people feel. She just turned 8.
Damn. What a phenomenal piece of writing.
Heaven forbid those "nice" neighbors ever have a mental health crisis of their own or have to deal with a family member having a crisis. 🙄
The light has gone on. I have caught myself feeling angry all. the. time. Angry at men who don't understand maternal and feminine issues and don't want to. Angry at the government. Angry at the healthcare system. Angry at corporations who don't pay equitable wages and provide paid maternal leave. Gah. I've thought from time to time about therapy to "deal with my anger." Now I see...I just need an outlet to make a difference...change the world as much as I can...stand up and stand out for those cannot for themselves.
I have an idea...no way to know how in the hell I'll be able to bring it to life with my meager business experience...but I'm starting the research and conversations today. Thank you.
There’s a difference between being nice and being kind. Being kind involves honesty/sincerity, love for our fellow creatures, and respect and this means it can sometimes be challenging and uncomfortable. Niceness often preserves the status quo and spares feelings, which means it can be superficial and lack authenticity.
I think kindness is inherent in feminism, which strives for equity for the benefit of all.
Being nice keeps the peace, mostly for our own social comfort, while being kind can challenge the status quo for the benefit of others.
Give me kindness and feminism over being nice.
I like to cut out quotes to give me quick reminders of new essential ideas. But literally this entire article was getting the highlight treatment.
Thank you for the question! And Zawn for the brilliant insights. It’s very helpful to have feminist information given without the workarounds usually added to sound unassuming or gentle or nice
You’re so impressive.
I find my self coming back to read this brilliant piece of deeply empathatic (written with a sense of humor too) writing so that I could remind myself I don't have to be nice to people who have been abusive to me! Yeah, I can't help but but be nice to them as well! Can't remember all those countless times the phrase "be nice" was drilled into my psyche by parents & teachers alike while growing up. Being nice always is one of most brutal emotionally exhausting things one can do in life...
I understand the worry that the letter writer has. Feminism has been long labelled as being loud, angry and nam hating as a way to try and shut us up. Fortunately, I’ve gotten to an age where I don’t care if others think of me negatively. If I had housing or economic security iI’d also tell my sexist and bullying boss to go take a flying fuck at rolling donut, but sadly as solo parent to a dependent adult child I can’t. I need the money to support us.
For the rest of my life though, I mostly can and do.
Quite honestly I think we are a point where we should be using our anger to burn stuff down, but for now I content myself with trying to help those who need it.
When my close friends have been asked to use one word to describe me, they have used “kind” which made me happy.
You can be a kind and caring person and a strong intersectional feminist at the same time. Calling out and reacting to injustice requires empathy, which kind caring people have lots of.
Being “nice” has gotten me violently, emotionally and financially abused so I am a little more careful about how and why I am being “nice” these days. I will not passively support bad people or things.
I’m having a hard time right now because we are at the tail end of a divorce and of course my stbx thinks my parenting is horrible now that we’re getting a divorce. But my daughter has expressed, even before the divorce, that she doesn’t like having his hugs and kisses all the time and now that we’re getting divorced, he’s taking it personally and keeps telling her to ‘be nice’. Of course I asked him please if you listen to one thing please quit telling her that when she doesn’t want to be touched and went on to explain why. He decided to do it even more, give her hugs and kisses and to tell her to be nice when she keeps saying something. He says he’s her father and he’ll give her hugs and kisses whenever he wants. Yay
All I can do is keep telling her that it’s fine to tell him she doesn’t like his hugs and kisses at times and even if he tells her to be nice, to never ever let anyone even him ever make her feel bad for expressing her feelings about being touched. She has asked me why he doesn’t listen to her….all I could say was that he doesn’t really understand how other people feel. She just turned 8.