I am a mid-20s female, and this mentality just drives me insane. I get where people are coming from, but it just sounds so infantilizing to have an entire "movement" based around this idea that women need reassurance that they're capable, powerful, and smart too.
For example, I am a small business owner, and I find it frustrating when other businesses go out of their way to say they're "woman-owned". It's like, okay...great...good for you, I guess? Should I applaud you or something? It's not a woman-owned business. It's just a fucking business, get over yourself.
The thing is, I'm not oblivious to the struggles women have had in the past, and still have to some degree today. But at some point, equality is equality and it's entirely counterintuitive to your cause if you're making up all these special treatments for women.
I want help and support because I asked, because I need it, because I deserve it (if, in whatever situation, I do deserve it. Sometimes we don't.). I don't want this weird, automatic, yet backhanded support just because I'm a female.
Another thing I hate is when other women are like, "It's your obligation as a female to support other females!" Uhh no. I will support you if I believe in you and what you're doing. But just because we both share a commonality, doesn't mean our values automatically align.
Don't get me wrong, I'm proud to be a woman! Or...at least as proud as normal people are about something they didn't earn or make happen themselves...like, it's fine and I'm happy with it. But, seriously. If you're a woman and you feel like you need that much reassurance in your life about your own autonomy and capabilities, then I'd say you should probably start doing some introspection into why that is, instead of constantly looking for it externally.
there doesn't seem to be anything here