Due to some uninteresting events of this past weekend, I've come to think of the sad role we, women, have come to play in this strange society. I may not be the first, not the last to speak about the de-personification of women nowadays, but I really felt the need to put in writing some of the thoughts I've been having for some time now.
The truth is that, although we have emancipated ourselves from the fearful and weak persons we used to be, we have also lost some of our charms due to this struggle. I read somewhere and I can't remember where that we are learned even as small girls to wait for prince charming, our childhood stories are full of beautiful princesses, so that, unconsciously, we are prepared even from our childhood, for a life of aspiring to absolute beauty and the perfect love. Now these are not terrible things, but once the girl who read this stories grows, and she becomes a woman, she will still aspire to be beautiful for this prince charming of hers, and such is her need of recognition, that she came to be this over-labeled, over expectant, over demanding woman that we all come to see one day. Everywhere you look, you can see restrictions into which the modern woman must fit: her overall aspect, her weight, her wits, her career, etc.
Of course you will say that not all women need to fit into this pattern, that there are so many independent women out there who do not feel the need to justify themselves, but I ask myself why must we come to the need to impress even with this rebellion against all the restrictions society throws in our faces, when have we become so twisted and unnatural that we need to prove something that we already are?
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| source: Google images |
I must admit I am scared to see our young women (not that I am very old, sic!) but I mean the young girls today whom will become the wives and mothers of tomorrow, trying so hard to fit into the pattern. When you feel that society will give you less attention, and subsequently you will have less success if you don't look the part; it is only normal to want to play the part and be the best. I am only saddened by this urge to try and look best for men, because they are the main reason, our " charming princes", which we feel the need to impress.
The nasty part is that young girls are easily seduced, easily impressed and influenced. It is practically impossible, now that women are "free", to pose restrictions on them, and normally, they won't know that to do with their freedom and will surely make a poor job of using their youth to their best advantage, hurrying down a path towards unhappy lives and unfulfilled dreams.
Though I am a convinced feminist, just like my boyfriend and close friends always tell me, I am realistic when it comes to watching women all around me; and no matter how much it hurts me to admit it, this is a man's world. They dictate everything, from the way we dress to please them to the jobs we take, even if just to impress and prove that we are equal.
I felt the need to try to explain that I don't see me better than others, then I renounced the idea, that is not the scope of this post; but I merely wanted to express my thoughts on the sad feeling that I'm having about women being treated like objects, and the even sadder thing that they not only silently agree to it, but they also contribute to this process. I know many will raise eyebrows when reading this, and even more will say that I am not only writing clichees, but that this subject has been so long debated that it lost its shine.
I have to disagree with all of them, because disrespect towards women is not an old issue, but a never ending, never-getting-old one, it happens every day, right under our noses. You will say that nobody forces them to be like puppets, but I say that once you know no other possibility to exist out there, you will do as you see around you, especially if the social pressure demands it.
We have fought to wear pants, and we have fought to wear short skirts, now I see wonderful women, with good jobs and money, wearing almost nothing and reducing themselves to a mere doll, just to please their partners and hold them by their side with fear of another one, more seductive, coming and whisking them away. We think ourselves elegant and original, when in fact we often do not even realize we are passing the thin line between sexy and obscene. I hate the word "sexy", because it is a really really sexist and denigrating word. When have we stopped being attractive and became sex slaves? Because we are slaves to this society and slaves to our own insecurities, and this word expresses all these terrible things in just four letters, to which we aspire so much, without even thinking.
I wonder if our women forefathers, the ones who fought for us to have the right to wear anything we want, to have children or not, to have a different status in our marriages, to have the jobs we dream of, to be able to speak our minds freely without the fear of being shunt by society would cry over our lost right, over our self-imposed slavery and over our pig-headed insistence to deny the truth...
I would try in vain to draw a conclusion to this idea, because this is a never-ending cycle, I unfortunately have no solution to this dilemma, I have absolutely no idea what we should make, besides demand more respect, and treat everyone else around us like we wanted to be treated ourselves. It is, however difficult to demand respect with our skimpy clothes, short skirts and high heels; if we want to be treated differently, we must shake down the shackles of fashion and society; we must no longer rebel against good-taste and elegance, but try and make people appreciate us for who we are and not for what we look like. Otherwise, we will never be taken serious, no matter how big our paycheck is.
