therapy is a form of social control

Labeling people as 'mentally ill' is a way for those in power to maintain their power.

People 'whine' and 'play the victim' and 'play the martyr' because they have no other choice.

If they felt that they could get away with strutting and preening and being the center of attention the way that you do, guess what? They'd fucking do it in a heartbeat.

But women, and men who are perceived to have anything remotely resembling womanly, feminine or female attributes, characteristics, behaviors, traits, what have you - are perceived by 'the powers that be' (namely, men, in a patriarchy) as non-human.

How often have you heard that a woman is "cute when she's angry"? What's behind this form of disrespect? You got in in one - the person (usually a guy) making the comment is trying to make the woman feel like an idiot for expressing that she's upset about something.

And if she really gets angry, to the point where she actually frightens someone? Then she's a 'castrating bitch' or some equally annoying shit.

A woman can never simply be perceived as angry, with said anger having a real and justifiable cause in the real world, based on real events. It's always something she imagined or mis-perceived - something that's "only in her head" and therefore doesn't really exist.

How much more demeaning can you get than to deny that a person experienced their very own experience? Answer: Not much. Denying someone's real experience is about as insulting as you can get.

Sometimes I think everybody, including other women, see women largely (or only?) in their roles as 'caretakers', as people whose sole function in life is to take care of other people.

So any time they (we) step outside this role, we're seen as abnormal or dysfunctional. We're failing to conform to their expectations.

Basically, men expect you to be like their mother. When you're not like their mother, it would never occur to them to question their expectations - after all, this is a male-dominated world, men get to make the rules, and women just have to live with them. So if a man says the way you're behaving is 'abnormal', then so be it. You're fucked. Best to just suck it up and conform, lest you end up being one of those human punching-bags we read about so often in the paper.

/snark/sarcasm