Dude, you are House.

I understand your intent now. I hope you, as well, understand how and why impact can overshadow intent (esp. when the intent is not clear) with things a member of a marginalized group hears over and over.

I don’t think you understand what I’m saying.

I’m not responding to the entire post. I’m responding to the scene in the XXBN chatroom. I don’t know about actually came across, but what I meant to express at the time was that I perceive you as someone who is capable of expressing anger, and does so.

…

blink, blink

Okay, now wait. Wait, wait…

Right here as I’m typing this, I’m going over what I posted in the chatroom…

“Amber? Angry? Naaaaah…” :)

… and looking at it from the point of view of someone who feels ridiculed when she’s angry… and it looks like I’m ridiculing someone’s anger.

Then, when I missed your response (and I really did miss it) it made it seem even worse.

The smiley was NOT there as an intent to ridicule. It was simply an attempt to signal sarcasm… a hamfisted one. If I had seen your response, I could have clarified, but I didn’t.

Boiled down, with the sarcasm skimmed off the top, what I meant was:

“Amber gets angry.”

Embedding it in what I thought was humor was insensitive, but I don’t like confrontation and I’d rather make a lame joke than see people get angry and start shouting.

I guess I don’t like confrontation.

Re: your question in the last paragraph, honestly I don’t even really understand it. I mean, it’s the entirely wrong question. Sure, people get angry about things they don’t like. That’s not the issue. The issue is how women get painted as either “the angry feminist” or “oh you’re so cute when you’re angry.” Either way demeans the woman in question and reduces the issue that we’re talking about to something that can be dismissed. It’s a way of not listening.

With regard to being perceived as angry or not, I’m not sure I can honestly apologize or even amend my perceptions. I *do* see you as angry sometimes but then again I’ve only been in your presence in-person a few times, for a few hours, and the pure text medium of chat/blog/whatever is notorious for impeding clear expressions of emotion.

When I am outspoken about something I doesn’t like, I am usually angry about it. It takes a bit of emotional investment to overcome my natural reticence to speak out. As a result, I assume that anyone, male or female, who is outspoken about something they don’t like is likewise angry. Is this a generally accurate assumption? I have no idea, but it’s buried deeply enough in my subconscious that I don’t know what I would do to dig it out.

(my god I sound like “House”…)

The general gist of which is, WORD.

I relate to so much of this, but in different scenarios, and I feel like this is kind of the crux of my new paradigm shift.

For me it’s about constantly being told that I’m wrong / irrelevant / ridiculous. While I’ve cognitively known that’s bullshit, I’ve still punished / blamed myself for it. I’ve finally started to figure out how to turn the toxicity, appropriately, outward instead of inward. I’m working on it…and I’ll stop there and try to pick it up in my own space soon.

((((()))))