Increasingly I’m finding that I can’t say the same old crap that I usually say on Twitter. In the last few weeks I’ve been verbally smacked on the wrist for silly things like criticising Glee (WHAT? Can’t you hear the awful autotune?), and tonight for being sad that someone I really like, Chrissie Swan, is now promoting Jenny Craig.
I’m not saying that people can’t ask me why I say these things, or that they can’t express dismay that I don’t like things that they like, but when I am getting it times 20 (because for some weird reason nearly 2,000 people follow me on Twitter) it’s a bit tiring and distressing. The only solution I have is to close my Twitter client and remove myself from the internet. I don’t like that solution.
Knowing lots of people have access to my most cursory of thoughts is getting to me. I feel a need to self-censor lately, and it really bothers me. Why should I censor myself just to avoid pissing people off? Women are trained to be ladylike and polite, not for the sake of getting along (which is a GOOD thing), but for the sake of not causing any trouble.
Do I just need to harden up? Am I allowed to give curt answers to questions I have been asked a billion times? If I ignore rude queries or fail to include eleventy billion exclamation points or smiley faces, I am called haughty. I’m not haughty, I’m a woman who has been through this drill. I’m a woman who struggles with being gracious, and being true to herself. I’m a woman like a lot of other women. I bet a lot of us are tired of being poked and prodded.