Cis Het Patriarchy is everywhere, it is and even when we become aware of it’s impact and strive to change our thinking and behaviors, it can be hard to see how embedded it is.
It is so much so that both Cis and Hetrosexual are assumptions we make about people. They are actually labels, but they are unthinking applied in a manner which to make them ‘the norm’. If we really want to not make assumptions about people we have to start with trying to not automatically applying those labels to people.
And we need to look at our use of language and learn where it comes from, how it can be oppressive and even an micro aggression.
Microagression are important, some times they are verbal some times not, some times they are the words we unquestioningly use when talking or writing.
One of the things hard things about trying to be an inter-sectional feminist is trying to figure out my own assumptions and prejudices, which are due to the culture and society we live in.
The big acts/utterances of isms are easier not to do the the micro aggression of isms, esp when I’ve not looked at them or had them pointed out to me.
Thankfully I have learned a lot over the last 20 years. But I still ‘check myself’.
One of the ways I do is to interact and read the writings of other people who are also striving to be ‘less shit’ at being an intersectional feminist, one of those people is Aoife O’Riordan and her post recent writing is
Homophobia: letting go of the Capital H.
Well worth reading in my opinion.
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