Vivek Shraya

Women who behave “badly” are ultimately not given the same benefit of the doubt as men and are immediately cast off as bitches or sluts. Men might be written off as
“dogs,” but their reckless behaviour is more often unnoticed, forgiven, or even celebrated—hence our cultural fixation with bad boys.

What would my body look and feel like if I didn’t have to mould it into both a shield and an ornament?

How do I love a body that was never fully my own?

Looking back, I regret telling Nick that he wasn’t special. I also regret all the times in our relationship that I told him he was a good man. I regret this not because he isn’t a good man but because good is a nebulous standard, and our desire for something that can’t really be measured outside of religious teachings and morality only sets us up for disappointment, and sets up every gender for failure.

Parsing and naming these specific characteristics, as opposed to clinging to “good” as a universal and aspirational qualifier, proved to be instrumental. First, it allowed me to see that one of these characteristics didn’t necessarily cancel out the others, unlike “good” that must be relinquished if one does something “bad.” Second, letting go of “good” restored Nick’s humanity, as he was no longer forced to sit upon a superhuman pedestal. Third, it returned agency to me. Some “mistakes” are unforgivable, some are not. It was up to me to decide whether to forgive this time, and to act on my decision.

taking up space is a form of misogyny because so often the space that men try to seize and dominate belongs to women and gender-nonconforming people.

When I was learning to be a man, I wish that instead of the coaching I received to take up space, I had been taught to be respectful of space.

How cruel it is to have endured two decades of being punished for being too girly only to be told that I am now not girly enough.

But your fear is not only hurting me, it’s hurting you, limiting you from being everything you could be. Consider how often you have dismissed your own appearance, behaviours, emotions, and aspirations for being too feminine or masculine. What might your life be if you didn’t impose these designations on yourself, let alone on me?