Put on your helmets. This is going to be a long rant so I hope if you're reading this you have some time.
I am not a good girl. There. I said it. I have never been a good girl. Although, for a while I tried to pretend to be one. In college and then in adulthood, I have ocassionally lapsed into trying to be a "good girl." But you know what I finally realized? It makes me angry. I'm angry about the fact that society teaches girls to be "good". I don't mean good in a don't-steal-things-or-kill-people way. I mean good in a "be pretty and slim and sit there quietly making few if any waves" kind of way. I think that as long as women continue to expend loads of energy and countless millions of dollars bending and shaping themselves into a stereotypical image few of us can attain, we will forever be at the mercy of a male driven society.
Is this a feminist, man hating rant? No. Not at all. There are so many great men out there doing good service. Even the ones who I don't particularly like or agree with. My problem isn't with them at all. I actually think we stand to learn a lot from them. Most men don't apologize for being human. I actually sort of admire that about them, although some of them have taken that too far and could use a swift kick in the butt (we won't get into that now). A man can cure cancer, have 5 affairs with teenage bimbettes, be a bad drunk and neglect his children and somehow, he still makes it into the hall of fame for his good accomplishments. We'd bow at his feet for curing cancer and pretend none of the other stuff happened. If you look at history, there are countless examples. But women are not afforded this luxury. We have somehow been put in the position of needing to be morally superior and visions of walking art as well. If a woman is highly intelligent and has much to offer the world, she is expected to behave with the utmost decorum. Any news of behavior that is somewhat off-color will likely blemish her accomplishments as well. Why is this?
And if your life's ambitions lead you to behave too much like men have throughout the ages, you get dubbed a bitch, or unwomanly or... Hillary Clinton.
It seems to me that, while our society is driven by men, it is we women who perpetuate the stereotypes. We love to gossip and go on about people's private lives. And we are usually the first to turn our backs on a female neighbor or friend who has been caught behaving less than impeccably. Meanwhile we expect men to misbehave. We do. Even though it angers us and disgusts us, we expect it. We've come to expect it to the point of accepting it. But we don't extend ourselves the same courtesy of accepting human foibles as just that. "Oh, Susan ran off with the gardner?" Instead of gasping and clutching the table linen, we should send her good wishes for a brighter future. Perhaps this is a turning point for her. She hasn't gone insane - she's having a crisis. We should hope she hasn't given up her private practice or sold her ranch or stopped working on that research project and wish her the best. I guess I'm saying women need to start sticking together. The good ole boys club exists because men figured this out a long time ago. They don't sit there with their jaws dropped to the floor and eyes wide open. They chuckle about those human frailties, have a cigar or a beer and business moves forward. And besides, Susan's husband was carrying on with the mail room clerk, but that hasn't come to light yet.
So my rant is really about how women need to spend less time pretending to be morally superior and start supporting each other more. We'd all get ahead much faster if we tried to adopt that behavior from the guys. They may sometimes be emotionally retarded neanderthals but if you haven't noticed, for the most part, they're in charge. If we want to make some headway, we need to get with the program.
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