Related Recs

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The performance of boyhood

i really also think about how much boys are taught ways to perform masculinity & how it is legitimised through tangible things like building a career etc but with women i find that from a young age our identity, behaviours, & thoughts are always spoken about in relation to other people/things — gender roles within the family, how we’re perceived by men, our friendships with other women, our relationships with material things etc etc — and this shows up in the labels that women are often given too! so and so is someone’s daughter, girlfriend, wife, mother etc etc. i envy the freedom of boyhood so much, the freedom to just be (this is not to discount the toxicity of traditional masculinity, i just think that boys are still afforded more “play” and therefore have more opportunities to develop their sense of self). maybe i am also biased because of how i’ve grown up & whatnot but i never really understood what it meant to quote unquote be a woman or perform femininity. i only saw this modelled within my nurturing friendships with women as i’ve gotten older but when i was younger, in church it was always “ok well don’t do this or that because x y z will happen to men if you do” or within my extended family it was often “are you seeing anyone? when are you having kids”. damn what happened to asking about how i’m doing or what my dreams are!!! long rant sorry !! but that’s my long winded way of saying “i feel you” haha

@addycyl

Jun 28, 2024

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Deconstructing Gender

Prescriptive gender is a prison. Rather than gender being a form of self-expression, gender is treated as a pass/fail test for how well you can conform to cultural expectations. Since I was young, I remember feeling a great deal of pressure to conform to these expectations around what “men” are meant to be. You like sports, cars, womanizing, aggression, and not having feelings. I felt so distant from this ideal. I was sensitive and shy, and I preferred spending my time being creative in some way For a long time, I felt like I was failing at “being a man.” In many ways I was! Because I didn’t need to bea man. All I needed to be was myself. It’s taken me a long time to separate myself from prescriptive gender, sharpening in on which aspects of masculine energy I identify with and which I don’t. I’m not done yet. Maybe I will never fully be. The self continues to evolve over time, and I suspect aspects of my gender will too.

@MidwestZen

Mar 15, 2025

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I think i had an unusually adventurous and fairly gender neutral upbringing

and I feel lucky about that; it made me who I am today! But as an adult woman I can definitely relate and I imagine what it would be like to feel that sense of freedom from being perceived as a woman and the societal expectations that come with that. Sylvia Plath said it best in her journals: “Yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars—to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording—all this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...” I do think though that it’s fruitless to fixate on these things, imagining the grass to be greener on the other side and essentially wishing you could have grown up and lived as another person, because 1 it’s not possible 2 the life you imagine has so many downsides to it too that you can’t even imagine not having experienced itself and 3 if you were a different person then the You you are now wouldn’t exist, and that would be a shame! I also think men are having a tough time now and many of them are probably just as neurotic, inhibited, and fearful as women. Obviously people are free to reject these notions and live life as whoever they want, and I respect and appreciate those who choose to do this, but I’m not interested in doing that for myself. Instead, I challenge the boundaries of what it means to be a woman in the ways that I can, which feels like the right choice for me!

@taterhole

Jun 28, 2024

Top Recs from @songs

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WEBKINZ

his name is house insulation

@songs

May 28, 2025

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listening to cds

finally using my portable CD player again to listen to my favorite album that isn't on any streaming services anymore!! it's so fun to have physical copies of media I like, and it was great to not use my phone for once (though the CD would pause every time I accidentally bumped into the player while I was walking to class; it was kind of charming but also pretty annoying).

@songs

Apr 15, 2025

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ACTUALLY DOING THINGS I WANT TO DO INSTEAD OF JUST THINKING ABOUT IT

my roommate and I were making a list earlier of movies we wanted to watch, which made me think of how many books and video games and albums I have on my lists that I just haven’t gotten around to. (let alone my hobbies like learning guitar or studying languages or doing creative stuff!!!) which also made me realize.. if I put off things that I WANT to do, what have I been doing with my time then??? Scrolling social media??? I’ve lost so much time endlessly scrolling my phone, and I think it’s time I get around to all of those pieces of art and hobbies and experiences I’ve been putting off. And, on that note… I should go to sleep so I can enjoy tomorrow instead of feeling tired and unmotivated. Goodnight PI, I hope you all listen to some good music tomorrow. Xoxo Isaac

@songs

Apr 12, 2025