I love this comment so much, because you hit on the underlying point of this piece so incisively. What I'm saying with this essay is that patriarchy has so deeply and completely ruined the label of "woman" (or tried to at least) that it's become easier for many of us to turn away from it entirely. I'm not sure it is all that separate from internalized misogyny. For me and many others, identifying as a woman comes with baggage, because I've been taught misogynistic, patriarchal ideas about what a woman should be. So yes - I think it's a reaction to and a subversion of internalized misogyny that so many women are claiming nonbinary identity.

If we defined womanhood expansively, in order to reflective reality rather than oppressive patriarchal ideals, I don't believe there would be nearly as many people identifying as nonbinary right now. The category of nonbinary has arisen to fill the gaps left across the spectrum of gender expression by a patriarchal insistence on narrow, punishing definitions of manhood and womanhood, masculinity and femininity.

That being said, no, I don't believe saying "I'm a woman" means you are subscribing to those patriarchal definitions. I still call myself a woman, while also calling myself nonbinary. So do many nonbinary women I know, hence the popularity of using "she/they" pronouns - that's part of what led me to write this piece. We are saying, YES, we are women, but also YES, we are more than what you say women can or should be; we are not ONLY that, we are MORE, we are expansive, WE WILL BE FREE.

I read an interesting review of the masterpiece television limited series, Station 11, based on the book of the same name by Emily St. John Mandel. (I wish I could find the review to quote it, but it's eluding me.) In it, the reviewer discussed the way one of the lead actors, Mackenzie Davis, who played the adult Kirsten Raymonde, showed us a "new way of being a woman" (that's a paraphrase from memory), because she was both feminine and masculine, soft and hard, vulnerable and strong, not afraid to get her hands dirty or climb things in a dress or play Hamlet. All I could think while reading it was...if we were free from patriarchal gender norms, isn't that pretty much all of us? How is this new? How sad that this feels new.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!