infantilization

i use a live wall paper on my phone that looks like this ^^. it's called paperland and i love it because it changes to match the weather and time of day in your area, which for some reason just makes me so excited.

i was using my phone during a meeting with three men today and all the sudden felt embarrassed they might see it.  then i realized how weird that was, and wondered why they might not like it. trying to think of reasons a guy might not use the app, i thought, "well, it's 'girly'," but that doesn't really make sense because there's nothing inherently girly about it. it's just stylized, so why would a male artist be opposed to it? then i realized: the simple colors and shapes, the themes... it's childlike. but i bet if you asked a guy who wouldn't use it why that is, he would say that it's girly, which really means childlike, because women are crazy initialized (or, of course, sexed up, but it's only one or the other, because binaries and patriarchy).

so that felt weird.

also, i still haven't seen august: osage county yet, but really want to. but i feel like i can't ask my husband to watch it with me. i think it's because it focuses mainly on women and/or relationships. even though they're family relationships, which men are a part of, somehow it's ridiculous to expect a man to sit through a movie about a woman or about traditionally female topics. even though women sit through movies about men... pretty much every time.