I was talking yesterday with my new friend local blogger Vide Infra yesterday and I compiled my worldview about being society's woman into an easy to explain philosophy.
First of all I'm going to start of by saying I am not a feminazi. I love men, most of my friends are men, I've dated alot of men, I'm not here to down men in the least, because I think that this model of femininity is propagated more by other women than it is by men.
I'm not going to blame the media either, which is another common thing we lay the blame on. You interpret the Cosmopolitan or the Gucci Ad the way you perceive it, but its not the medias fault. The media is a business and it gives us what sells. What sells you may ask? Well its quite easy, open any women's magazine What do you see? Millions of ads for cosmetics, designer clothes, perfume, diet supplements and every other thing on the planet to make a woman into something else. Its not the magazines fault though that its full of articles that tell us how to do our hair and make-up and that tell us how to be something else entirely. The Magazine takes cues from its reader, what sells more, what sells less, and you know what magazines, TV, Internet, news papers and every other media have figured out sells with women? The stuff that women claim makes them feel inadequate.
I'm not denying that maybe a minority population of people have some sort of mental condition where seeing a lot of glossy idealized images of women may be psychologically damaging, they may get the wrong idea about how women should look, but the majority of women don't have that problem, their just look for a scapegoat to explain their own nature. People are inherently shallow and there's nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be attractive. I seek to be attractive, its a part of our main directive, to seek a mate, even though your not aware, alot of the things that we do are for the purpose of attracting a mate to carry on the species, its hard wired into our biology.
I am not a feminist in the classical way, although I identify myself as one. I don't blame all my problems on men, I don't hate men, and I don't look for sexism in every social institution. I do not think that a woman should get a job over a man if the man is more qualified, I do not think that women are smarter or better than men. I think that intelligence is evenly distributed throughout the population, there are smart people in all walks of life just as there are stupid people in all walks of life.
I believe that being the woman that society wants me to be is too thin of a line too walk. Its a juggling act while wearing stilettos and walking a tightrope with no harness or safety net. It used to be that women only had to be a few things, of course this was back in the times when women were not afforded many of the opportunities that they have now, I would not give up the opportunities I have now for a more clearly defined societal role. But I mean that women are expected to be everything at once. We have to be smart and career driven, but not so much so that we're too intimidating and opinionated. We have to be beautiful, but not so appearance minded that we are shallow. We have to be sexual, but we can't be like a guy with our sex. We have to be hard to get and seem to good for the guy, but still be available. The juxtaposition is maddening.
I can't be Society's Woman.
I used to blame this impossible standard on men, thinking they were selfish and wanted perfection on their arm. But my views have changed recently. I've never had a man tell me that I was too involved in my work or too motivated too succeed or too opinionated. I'm sure there is a population of men who would feel that way if they met me, because beauty is kind of relative. But I've never had a problem attracting men to me ever since the start of my junior year and I have only grown more motivated since then, and I still don't have trouble.
The people who have been quick to reprimand me for my deviance from the appropriate behavior for a woman are other women. I cannot even begin to count how many times a female has said to me, you'll never meet a guy with your nose in a book, no guy is gonna want to date a girl who is more physically strong than them, no man wants a woman who is so opinionated.
I used to be very insecure back in the day about different physical aspects of my body. I'm short and too skinny, my boobs were too small or my thighs too fat, or hating the little bump on the left side of my nose, or my hair just won't do the right thing. I worried that these small imperfections would make it hard for me to find a guy, but then I noticed one day, whenever I'm just having a good time and enjoying myself and not thinking so hard about how I look, men are far more interested in me. No one has a completely perfect body, and most guys don't care that my thighs may jiggle a bit or that I'm a bit thin or having a bad hair day. That while physical attractiveness plays a component in weather a man finds me attractive or not, it comes more from within and that those things that other women condemned in me, the intelligence and being opinionated, were the things that kept men coming back. That although my out word appearance drew them in, it was my intelligence and personality that kept them interested and made them want to pursue me. They liked me BECAUSE I had an opinion on a political issue, or was well versed and well read, not IN SPITE OF it. They liked that I was articulate and knew what I wanted and that I was forward and driven and that it was those things that make a relationship not the right pair of shoes or outfit or perfect make-up.
So I have decided that the woman that society (aka other women) wants me to be is an asshole and I don't want to be like her. She has some good components, but she isn't me. I am secure in myself now, I don't need the approval of other women or men to feel good about myself anymore, I need to be secure in what I'm doing and trust myself, and then others will follow.
I know that I will never be able to make everyone happy. Beauty is relative. Some people will say about me Krissy Aldrich is beautiful and interesting and some people will say Krissy Aldrich is short, has the body of a twelve year old and a nasty attitude. I'm not going to let the ones who say bad things about me get to me anymore. All that's important to me is that I'm happy with myself, and my close friends and family are okay with who I am, if I have that going on than I think I succeed, not only as a woman, but as a person.
I am not Society's Woman,
I am Krissy Aldrich, I'm nineteen years old, and I am proud of who I am.
Thank you Vide Infra for talking with me and helping me develop this thought into something I could write on, and thanks to all the people who have loved me for who I am, I wouldn't be where I am now without you guys.
Check out my friend's blog: http://lookbeneath.blogspot.com/
