Girls Who Like Girls Who Like

I'd heard this quote before, but only just now have been able to place it. It explains some things about society and misogyny in places people don't want to look. I find it fascinating that many oft-used insults are feminine or relating to the female body. As though being female is the ultimate insult. I may just be thinking too deeply, but it makes me wonder. I've been scolded for being a feminist, when all I said was that I believed in equality between men and women in society. I have no idea why people think that's wrong.

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Julie spoke quietly. "You think girls look idiotic, daft, stupid...?"
"No," I said indignantly.
"You think it's humiliating to look like a girl, because you think it's humiliating to be a girl."
"It would be for Tom, to look like a girl."
Julie took a deep breath and her voice dropped to a murmur. "Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it's okay to be a boy; for girls it's like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading."
--from "The Cement Garden" by Ian McEwan, 1978