you, post modern feminist, you.

The most recent article my dad sent my mom was discussing how Greta Gerwig’s new Little Women doesn’t align with Lousia May Alcott’s intentions of faith as the true path to peace and love within family and life.

To that I say, what the fuck does it matter? Greta Gerwig’s feminism is what females and general audiences need to see today. I haven’t even seen it yet, so I’ll say more after that happens, but I already know that much without even needing to see it. Art inspires art. Since when does the remake rely on being exactly like the original? Besides the Disney cartoons being made into live action, nearly none of the remakes or redoes or homages to previous films can 1.live up to the OG or 2.is sometimes even better than the OG 3. and yes, of course, oftentimes worse. I don’t believe Gerwig’s adaption could be worse; different, sure, but isn’t that to be expected? Wouldn’t we be disappointed if it was exactly the same so many years and events later?

The most recent article my dad sent me was in defense of old white men everywhere. Rex argues that these qualities when combined are now unjustly working against men of this description because the prejudices of the new generations towards age. He argues that it is just not fair because age means experience and wisdom and their opinions and value must not be discounted.

Fuck you, Rex. How long have white men ravaged on throughout history about how one race or the other sex is less than the Western white male power?? Literally forever. And now, minorities are speaking up, women are speaking out, and you’re just not as cool or wise as you once were. Get the fuck over it. Support your fellow human specimens regardless of their race or gender, which is technically what Rex is also advocating for, but in the defense of old white men, it falls flat.

Being old today is not necessarily an insult, (as much as “okay, boomer” may be seen as such,) it only is if you can’t keep up with the woke of the world. If you resist and reject the youth’s trends towards open mindedness and fluidity, you’re the ignorant ones. You’re not wise. Just because you’ve been on this earth for longer than we have does not necessarily mean you are the smart ones and we are not.

Of course everything is relative, but are we not experiencing so much catastrophe in a short amount of life? Maybe we are learning rapidly, and more quickly than you learned your life lessons? The wars you lived through were abroad. The wars we are waging today are happening right here.

We actually do respect our grandparents, it’s those just young enough and just old enough that think they know what is best for us when really it is becoming a whole new world from what the previous generation knew. We can no longer get one job in one place to work at for 20 years plus. We can have 5 different jobs in less than 10 years. We can get married young but we are also free to divorce younger and find new partners. We can quit our jobs and travel for awhile because we don’t have kids yet, and many of us are deciding maybe we don’t need to. We are owning our lives and our experiences and our observances in ways that the older generation is dismissive of because they find it rude to expose yourself so fully.

Keep those things to yourself, older generations might say. How many times have I felt dismissed when I’ve spoken of my period around, in particular, older men? How is that fair? Yes, men, you are half of our population, but no, just because we are feminists does not mean that we are misandrists. We love men and what we can be with them and for them and vice versa. But we’ve also put up with our more than fair fucking share of men who talk down to us simply because we are women, who don’t respect our opinion because we’re young or pretty, or even worse, both.

For a petty example,  younger females in the restaurant industry may have ten plus years in the beer industry and know exactly what we’re talking about, and even if you old men have been drinking beer for twenty plus years, we’ve been drinking a variety of way better shit, and the complexities have multiplied and since we have grown with the growth we’ve been able to keep up in ways that you actually haven’t. So maybe you should take our advice. Maybe you do only like what you like, but isn’t that proof of your inability to grow? I understand standards, and habits, and I’m not putting those down by suggesting you try this new award winning beer.

Maybe you old white men should start taking our younger and more nuanced advice. We are all products of our environments, truly, and wholly, and to break tradition or to be different than societal expectations is fucking hard. You should know. Honestly, I believe you old men resent us for your “inability” to go after your dreams in your youth like we are doing now. You resent us for dating a myriad of people and being really fucking picky about who we commit to. You resent us for having the balls to tell our elders off. You resent us for being gay because you’ve been closeted your whole life because toxic masculinity has made it impossible for you to express your true feelings and misogyny is so real that even feminine characteristics are looked down upon, the most important one of them being the ability to be vulnerable.

Women and minorities have been dismissed for long enough. And now, you’re upset at being dismissed? We’re actually not even trying to do that… We are open to conversing and discussing… but are you? You seem to just be telling us that we’re wrong… again. We’ve heard that all our lives, so we won’t be shy to refute it now. We’ve gathered strength now. We’re getting even stronger now.

Yes, in our liberal left party of diversity and inclusion and intersectionality, we have come down to two old white men for candidates to represent our party in the presidential race. This does not mean that they are still the best options for our governance. It means that the system is fucking twisted and broken and is gonna take a lot more work to overcome the misogynistic and racist structure that runs the world.

It does not mean that old men white are the smartest or wisest or best for the job. It means we have a lot more battles before we win the war on patriarchy. I mean patriarchy as the system on which our nation thrives. I do not mean individual men, one of those individuals is one of 7 billion people in the world that I love very much. Men are not better than women. Women are not better than men. We can work together and be better together, but it takes compromise and relentless pursing of our goals if we want to see change happen. We know that. We’re fighting the good fight everyday. Just because we’re not winning yet, doesn’t mean we are gonna stop trying. Youth is not better than age, but fresh perspectives can solve age-old problems, and the most intelligent youth do learn from their elders, importantly, they learn from history, so trust that will still happen, and do not belittle our efforts because you feel dismissed. Go travel or something. (Basically, go fuck yourself?) Make way for us young and femme and diverse. We will change the world for the better eventually whether you like it or not.

Make way for new interpretations of old stories. It’s our time to tell our stories, new and old, from our own fucking perspectives now.