A lot of Female Bonding is Secondary Status/ Trauma Bonding

So I just had a shower thought as to why certain female efforts at bonding don’t work with me and I realized this- the basis for that bonding is embracing our status as secondary citizens in the world and creatures of service.

It’s not that I don’t like women, it’s that many women, especially older women, try to bond with you using elements of patriarchal oppression.

Examples: We need to get all the men here a plate. That’s what we women do!

We need to slave in this kitchen all day cooking while the guys watch the game. That’s our feminine lot.

I had problems meshing with the older secretaries on my job because they bond in a similar way. They whisper about how they don’t like the work, or how we’re the underclass compared to the attorneys and always will be, thus need to stick together. Uh no. If I don’t like it, I’ll go back to school and become one, not “we just keep our heads down and mouths shut and work” as one older woman there advised me. In other words, stfu and accept your place under them and the fact you can’t speak up or challenge them even if treated with a lack of respect.

Do you see the problem. They want me to bond with them over elements of our oppression which I essentially want to escape. It’s like two slaves together and one is saying to the other, let’s hoe this field together and bond over our common plight because that’s what our life is. No. I don’t want to hoe the fucking field and i don’t want to bond with you over that shit. I want to escape it

It’s problematic because it’s essentially a form of trauma bonding and appeasement, trying to make the trauma and service better/ more palatable rather than overturn the wrong structure completely. In it is the tacit assumption that this is how it’s always been and always will be for “us women”

It sorta repulses me. This is what people like “us” must do and it’s time for you to bow your head and take your initiation into it whether you like it or not. Come on now. Very handmaiden

What it essentially is- is that they want me to bond with them over our smallness and servitude and i don’t want my life to be anything like that. But they’re putting the mantle on me, to accept

Why can’t we bond over shared hobbies and goals v our oppression. If men ever bond over oppression- its female oppression and trauma- like rape culture and misogyny. Not their own trauma which is particularly sadistic and self defeating

If you don’t make yourself “relatable” by bonding on those things it’s easy to be seen a difficult bitch

I found in the legal field (where almost all the secretaries are older women and the majority of the people being served/ attorneys, especially the powerful ones are male) that of course men are happy for us to bond over the perpetuation of our perceived unchallenged and unquestioned “need” to service them. Which is passed down in a way that implies we don’t have a choice. It’s just what we women must do. I was encouraged by the male attorneys to learn and accept my place among the older women in a position of service and secondary underclass with humility

For a lot of older women how to serve and play the perfect secondary citizen, how to make yourself small and keep your voice down, use passive aggression and dissimulation to get your way without directly confronting men is the only thing they learned in life and the lesson they keep trying to pass to younger woman as a form of bonding. But it’s an obsolete one

Another point women love to bond on, without realizing it’s a secondary status marker is the unfair amount of house work and emotional labor we pull in the family unit- always being the one to do the laundry, cook or help a sick child.

I don’t want to relate. My goal is to make enough to pay someone to do the housework and also marry an equal who assumes a fair amount of it himself.

A lot of older women tend to give positive reinforcement to/ get happy when they see you picking up the mantle of chores and the emotional labor of running a household. The reality is that all that unpaid labor monopolizes and ties up women’s intellectual resources and talents which could be better used elsewhere. Why are you celebrating or giving positive reinforcement to women learning how to do and assuming unpaid labor? Like it’s some kind of key right of passage for womenhood a feminine check point to maturity that makes you proud to see. We shouldn’t be doing it anyway. I hope no daughter of mine is ever caught dedicating huge chunks of her life to trivial things like washing dishes. It definitely should not be a bond point for us, if it can be helped.