Apparently, Cancers cry out loud. Apparently, Cancer takes up a lot of emotional space except not all of us have been able to take up emotional space even when we were kids. Apparently, Cancers are sweet and always there for a friend until they snap in the bitchiest of ways.

A lot of the stereotypes around Cancer are really just stereotypes about femmes. They’re bratty, bitchy, and their emotions aren’t always perceived as real but decorative. Femme emotions are often camp emotions. They’re not felt. They’re self-inflicted.

Of course, there is the obvious—not all Cancers are femmes even if some are. There are masc Cancers, homebody Cancers, ambitious Cancers (and so many Cancers are ambitious!), and Cancers who like to party. There are Cancers who sit sullen in the room because they don’t know how to start a conversation. There are Cancers who usher everyone in with a warm smile because they know exactly how to start a dialogue.

But there is also the problem of stereotypes around Cancer being not so much about the Sun sign but about how we treat feeling that is perceived to be femme in general. Femme pain is fetishized, is treated as fragile, scarce, hoarded, and sarcastic. Femme joy is treated as if it is almost nonexistent. That is why so much of the stereotypes that we have about Cancers, I think, are about sadness. Femme pain is hypervisible and, if you’re trying to prove that you are both here and alive, sometimes defaulting to a description of your pain seems like a shortcut worth at least checking out.

The Cancer stereotype is an interesting one. Many signs are stereotyped as their most privileged versions. Leos are compared to celebrities and the Saturn ruled signs to businessmen. However, Cancer is a sign that is often wrapped up with femininity. Cancers are described as privileged enough to shed a tear but disempowered enough to feel sad and uncared for. Cancers bring up an image of Cinderella sweeping up a dusty floor, contained by domesticity and trapped by the home. Cancer is a homebound sign, without the privilege of taking public space.

But Cancers aren’t relegated, in the real world, to the lives of housewives. Cancers work and perform just as much labor as the rest of us. Some Cancers find success in their work. Some Cancers organize labor unions. Most Cancers spend most of their lives outside of their homes.

If you’re not a stereotypical Cancer, then it’s possible that you are not a housewife or, rather, a man’s projection of a housewife. It’s possible that you’re not a wife or, if you are, that your wifiness doesn’t define you. It’s possible that your emotions are not trapped at home, that you feel joy often, and that you are not resentful without reason.

That there is a stereotype, at all, about Cancers boggles me. Cancer Sun is a Moon ruled Sun and the expression of the Sun changes completely from context to context.

Cancer is about having mastery over your emotions and mastery over your emotions is not about control but about understanding. Cancers understand that emotions need to be understood. They understand and understand—they understand the things that take a lifetime to understand because they dedicate a lifetime towards understanding. There are Cancers who engage in serious study and there are Cancers who laugh, in their understanding, boisterously. No matter what Cancer does, whether that is theology or stand up comedy, Cancer is a philosopher. This, after all, is the exaltation of Jupiter.

And yes, Cancers are hilarious. This is an undervalued trait of the sign. They are funny because they understand what makes you tick. They are funny because they know you. But the type of humor? And what they strive to understand? That depends on the Cancer.

Cancers see everything. They notice everything and they remember everything. They earn wisdom, which means that sometimes younger Cancers act very old and older Cancers act very young. They dress casually and often goofily. They don’t care about a lot of stuff but they know everything about the things that they do care about.

If you’re not a stereotypical Cancer, you’re still an adequate Cancer. You’re not doing Cancer wrong and you’re not living life wrong. Cancer is one of those signs that seem like a stereotype than anything else because so many of the descriptions for this sign are not about understanding but about diagnosis—the same type of diagnosis that views feeling as burden and knowledge as wearisome. If you’re not a stereotypical Cancer, you’re a whole Cancer—impactful and intact in both your catharsis and your inspections.