D Gifford
1 min readAug 7, 2024

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You are conflating and associating freedom, independence and autonomy with "manhood." Words matter, and as you can see by the comments you are receiving, yours aren't getting through. That's because conflating the desire for independence with "being a man" is sexist inherent bias and requires linguistic distinction/parsing—for accuracy, if nothing else.

The need for and right to independence, autonomy and (relative) freedom to choose one's responsibilities in life is not a gendered thing: These are HUMAN needs, and rights. But by collective (generally unconscious), sexist inherent bias, it is mostly men who get to completely exercise these rights at this time.

Therefore, women do not seek to be men; we seek to remove all the obstacles that prevent us from exercising the same human rights that men do—the rights that we are entitled to as humans.

In other words, women want to be free of anyone who does not regard us as fully human, and we insist upon becoming fully human in the eyes of the law and society. In sum, women just want to be free people. No qualifier on it needed.

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D Gifford
D Gifford

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