Knowledge runs down.

It is disappointing to discuss your ideas with someone else.

Especially if you care about their opinion… which for me, is anyone and everyone. Not that I care about their opinion over mine, I think. But I try to take their thoughts into account and enmesh them with my own.

My poor memory means I get caught in their ideas and forget my own. Until later, when I am baffled at the tenor and track of our conversation and regret that I was not more firm in my own ideas. (How female of me.)

My family tells me I talk too much, talk over them, talk too loud.

But on dates I listen a lot. I spur them on with a pointed question and sit rapt. They [word for giving a speech that’s got a slightly negative vibe but I can’t remember rn] and I absorb and absorb. Eventually, I interpret.

Because I can’t sense my own emotions in the moment, I don’t realize until after they’ve gone that I am disappointed. They didn’t get what I was saying, or understand how I wanted to discuss the topic.

Today I went on a date with a very smart and philosophical history queer. We’ve been sending voice memos back and forth on queerness and sexuality and kink and ADHD.

I brought a book up – to be fair he hasn’t read it. I did my best to summarize the fantastical and strange ideas and asked, open-ended, “What do you think of that starting point?”

“I hate it,” he said. Then we talked at length about the mathematical and physical basis for reality and the metaphysical idea of one integrated “soul” that he uses to conceptualize life.

I didn’t understand what he was saying, sometimes. Other times I disagreed. It was an enjoyable exchange.

When we came back to the book, he, fairly, said he couldn’t say much without having read the thing. But what he did say was disappointing. He didn’t get what the author is going for. He didn’t understand how strange it was, which is fair, since he hasn’t read it.

Even though I know his opinion shouldn’t account for much, I find myself – in a very “female” way – trying to shift my ideas aside to make room for his. Even though I disagree! And there’s every reason to qualify his thoughts with a lack of context. And even with context, maybe he didn’t get it.

I wouldn’t have gotten Females a couple years ago, and I’m not sure I get half of it now. Andrea Long Chu contradicts herself on purpose, and I get that part, at least.

Buddhism was right – desire leads to suffering. I wanted him to get it, I hoped and expected that, of anyone I knew, he might understand.

So now I’m disappointed and I suffer for it. But like, not that much. It’s not really a big deal.

—

In Chapter 2 (?), Andrea explains her thesis: “femaleness is a universal sex defined by self-negation” (p. 11). Over four narrow pages, she makes her core claims and connects them to the history of women’s movements and the idea of the word “female.” Her writing is crisp, clear, decisive. Then she ends the chapter with, “Or maybe I’m just projecting” (p. 14).

Andrea!?!?

What do you mean? You don’t actually take yourself seriously? In this very serious book about the seriously important ideas of gender and power?

This choice makes more sense as you settle into her writing tone and come to understand the framing device: the wild, contradictory and horrifying play Up Your Ass by Valerie Solanas. Andrea loves Valerie, and her style references the crass and rude founder of SCUM (society for cutting up men).

Valerie is outrageous and too serious to take seriously, which is exactly what Andrea endeavors to do. And she takes herself and her idea seriously, even when she is stretching the logic of the concept of female to the extreme.

Andrea also doesn’t ask or answer questions that I want to hear about:
If everyone hates being female, is there a way to stop being female? Is there a way to stop hating being female? Does Andrea recommend either effort?

But she explains that – the manifesto is a call to action, not action itself. It is serious and unserious, and not to be taken seriously. And, although she doesn’t name it as such, Females is a manifesto in its own right.

Love and my tongue in your cheek,
Jordie