I am told I must be genuine but must be quiet and nice. I am told I can do anything but how many "experts" are women? (I will now seek to read more female authors). I am told that I am perfect just the way I am; so-long as I am "sweet" and resemble someone on a hiatus in an internment camp.
This makes me angry.
I am told I am not a sex object but I have been grabbed at and objectified from a very young age.
This makes me sad.
I pick up a magazine and not one article tells me I should think for myself or have hobbies; only touts the technique for the perfect blow job. I can read about a thousand ways to degrade myself in bed but no one is going to tell me how to figure out who I was before I was "socialized."
Okay...
It's not okay.
So how do we make sense of the mixed messages?
The Constitution guarantees certain unalienable rights to men.
So what about women? We've done a bit more than stitch the flag in the sewing circle for the past several hundred years.
This is what bothers me--we may need an amendment to guarantee rights to women.
Awesome.
It's as though we were just allowed to read and vote; but rights?
*Cut to: a boardroom somewhere
Guy in a Fitted Shirt: We have failed at brainwashing the female gender.
Guy in Italian Leather Shoes: What do you expect? You gave them the proper propaganda. You initiated the plan but some of them developed an alcohol tolerance and not many of them wanted to take the pills. You can't shut them up.
Shirt guy: But we encouraged everyone to debase them from a very young age.
Shoes guy: Some of them are strong-willed.
Shirt guy: And you couldn't break them?
Shoes guy: We couldn't break them. They were too clever and very angry at how they had been repressed.
Shirt guy: What about the diet pills?
Shoes guy: We've already tried that. They caught on.
Shirt guy: What about fashion?
Shoes guy: We've tried that but some of them don't want to conform to the uniform.
Shirt guy: How about turning them against each other?
Shoes guy: Don't you think that we've thought of that already? We teach distrust of their own gender, create elite social groups and pit them against each other to earn the affection of men; but some of them will not conform.
Shirt guy: We may have to resort to Plan B.
Shoes guy: We've performed some preliminary experiments with Class C level degradation and the studies show that the human spirit becomes stronger.
Shirt guy: Fascinating.
Shoes guy: So some of these women will willingly become slaves to fashion, ideals, marriage, sexism, and some of our more unsavory tactics, but when we implement violence, they become stronger?
Shirt guy: Yes. In fact, some of them become quite irreverent.
Shoes guy: Any suggestions?
Shirt guy: We have think tanks working on the issue; however, we have exhausted all of our current tactics. I need chocolate.
Shoes guy: Now you sound like one of "them."
*****
What I am trying to illustrate is that society creates certain contradictions that women are told they must abide by.
We are given an illusion; a promise of security, so-long as we can meet the standards posed to us.
We have the right to remain silent. More accurately, we are encouraged to remain silent; lest our opinion should matter. We have ownership of our own bodies, but our bodies should meet certain standards of conformity. We have certain unalienable rights, but since we are not "man," we require a judgment or amendment to guarantee those rights.
As far as I am concerned, the only biological difference between me, Napoleon, and the framers of the Constitution lies in a jar in a museum somewhere and is dedicated to the beloved Josephine, and, is infamously small in nature.
I do not delight in pissing contests. I do not believe that the world is against me. It's just the way it has operated for a very long time.
I bet no one would tell Michelle Obama she "can't."
I bet no one would tell a female Supreme Court justice what to say.
No one would say it out loud but it is understood that we are the "weaker" sex.
If you knew my family, you would disagree. I come from a long line of feared women. The men in my family sometimes sigh and sometimes shrug off our opinions, airs and tempers.
Sometimes I think my grandfather loves to fight with my grandmother as much as he loves to kiss her. I don't think she'd be the same if she didn't put up a fight. Her name may be Barbie but there is nothing plastic about her.
