Thursday, January 27, 2005

Episode 27: In Which the Protagonist Considers Throwing in the Towel and Taking Up Underwater Basketweaving

[Brutal Women note: This was originally posted on 1/7/05: I am re-date stamping it for 1/27/05 to keep the comments current, as it's received some interest.]

Brendan's found a couple of good articles. The one I want to tackle is this one about why feminists are afraid of fat: i.e. feminists want to be pretty, too. The "I want to be loved and still be a real person" conundrum.

There's simply an irreconcilable contradiction between feminism and femininity, two largely incompatible strategies women have adopted over the years to try to level the playing field with men.

The reason they're incompatible is simple. Femininity is a system that tries to secure advantages for women, primarily by enhancing their sexual attractiveness to men. It also shores up masculinity through displays of feminine helplessness or deference. But femininity depends on a sense of female inadequacy to perpetuate itself. Completely successful femininity can never be entirely attained, which is precisely why women engage in so much laboring, agonizing, and self-loathing, because whatever you do, there's always that straggly inch-long chin hair or pot belly or just the inexorable march of time.

Feminism, on the other hand, is dedicated to abolishing the myth of female inadequacy. It strives to smash beauty norms, it demands female equality in all spheres, it rejects sexual market value as the measure of female worth. Or that was the plan. Yet for all feminism's social achievements, what it never managed to accomplish was the eradication of the heterosexual beauty culture, meaning the time-consuming and expensive potions and procedures—the pedicures, highlights, wax jobs on sensitive areas, "aesthetic surgery," and so on. For some reason, the majority of women simply would not give up the pursuit of beautification, even those armed with feminist theory. (And even those clearly destined to fail.)


What I find fascinating about this idea about the conflict between "femininity" and "feminism" is the internal conflict: In order to be loved, I must look and act this way. This is called "being feminine." It may not be who I am, I may loathe most of it or like some of it, but in order to be loved, this is how I have to be.

Because for all the talk about female vanity, and how the only reason women go out to buy shoes and lipstick and the reasons women starve themselves and angst about their looks, what we're talking about beyond basic vanity is just this:

Good women, the sort of women who are loved, are the women who look and act this way.

That's the message you get banged on the head with everyday in your MSN advice columns, and stupid studies about how men want to fuck their mothers, so women should strive to be little and less successful than the men they adore.

And, no, it's not just about love from men, though male approval is a huge deal: women are the first ones to punish the fat women who don't play by the rules, the people who don't go hungry, the ones who won't wear shitty shoes and pretend to be stupid on a date.

By the time you're three or four years old, you know what sorts of actions and poses will get you good attention. You know what the ideal is gonna be. And even though it's total bullshit, all you hear, over and over again in the news media is how being smart and strong and wearing pants and knowing how to spit means that no one will ever love you. Guys might sleep with you, but they can't show you off to their friends, cause you don't look like the sort of girl they know they're "suppposed" to bring home. Women might exchange a few words and say how neat your life is, but unless you surround yourself with women just like you, you're going to find all their talk about makeup, boob jobs, and manicures deeply, deeply boring.

When you're told as a little girl that in order to be loved, you need to be pretty (and docile, and quiet) and then you're shown pictures of girls and women who don't look like you, you're going to try and look like those girls. Human beings are social creatures. They like to be around other people. Touch, friendship, love, all that good stuff: that's what makes you human. The ones who lose that stuff, or are born with some sort of screw missing in the sociability department are usually the monsters, the freakshow killers who view people as things.

The struggle for those women who want to be themselves - and whose selves are the smart, strong, successful types - is a heartwrenching, soul crunching battle between wanting to be a person worthy of being loved and wanting to be yourself. Because you'll get banged over the head every damn day that being yourself isn't enough. You're not lovable first thing in the morning. Wearing jeans and being smart and speaking loudly isn't lovable. If you do those things, you're a feminist man-hater, and no one will love you.

And you know, it's funny: I read this article right after I came home from my Denver trip, where I was ruminating on all this corporate stuff pushed my way, musing about how long I could reasonably wait before asking that I pull a salary in equal measure to the work I'm about to do, and I was sitting between these two petite, straight-haired women with lean shoulders and make-uped-into-flawlessness skin, and I thought:

This is it. I'll never get laid again.

I'm tall, broad-shouldered, wide-hipped, brunette (curly hair), weigh as much as the average guy, have breasts that no one will ever write home about, have three degrees, done some world traveling, written novels, write violently feminist stories, maintain a feminist blog, and now I have an important-sounding job that's going to take me around the country in suit jackets with briefcase and laptop and cell phone and corporate card. All they have to do is start paying me 60K+, and I'll be priced out of the running.

Why?

Because women exist so that men can feel better about themselves? Cause men are so insecure that they can't stand the idea of hitting on or being rejected by a woman with three degrees? Cause the idea of being romantically involved with somebody who's your equal is really scary?

That's what the media likes to say, doesn't it? Those are the articles feminist blogs and Bitch magazine are always pissing on.

But those aren't the relationships I surround myself with, and those aren't the sorts of people I have in my life. The buddies I have are in pretty egalitarian relationships, actually, whether hetero or same-sex. The friends I have like me just this way, and I like them just like they are, which would be why we're friends.

And yet, I can't really talk, can I, because I haven't dated in a couple years (and, to be fair to myself, haven't tried: my brush off of Yellow being a good example). So I'm pretty much it: I'm that scary, alone, butch-like femi-nazi that your friends and mothers always warned you you'd end up like if you didn't marry the first guy you had sex with.

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, I thought that in order to be the "right" kind of girl, I had to dress more fem, speak softly, and defer to my boyfriend in all of his infinite wisdom, forgetting that he, too, was Just A Kid. I'd spent so long feeling ugly and out of place that when I hit high school theatre (I dropped weight, lost my braces and glasses, between eighth and ninth grade) and suddenly all these guys asked me out, it was like somebody dumped a big pile of something in front of me, but I didn't know if it was good or bad, I just knew that I was finally doing something right in the girl department. I picked the best suitor of the bunch, broke up with him once, had him call me crying on the phone, so stayed with him cause I thought people would think I was weird if I didn't have a boyfriend.

The longer I dated him, the more worried I got about how people would look at me if we ever broke up. No guy had expressed interest since I started dating, so I had nobody to hop to to maintain my girl status if we parted.

He cheated on me.

We broke up for three days, and got back together again: because he cried a lot, and I didn't have a boyfriend.

And then he started telling me how I was supposed to be, how I should look, so that he wouldn't cheat on me again.

Seriously.

I was convinced he cheated on me not just because he was a horny kid and had the opportunity, but because I was some sort of failed woman that no one would ever love.

So, you know, I tried. I tried to wear skirts and dresses and speak softly and defer to him and pretend he was oh-so-much-more worldly than I.

To sum up: I lost myself.

Weight was my one rebellion, the one indication that there was something deeply, deeply wrong, and I put on something like 60 or 70 pounds in a year and half.

We moved in together, things got increasingly bad, blah blah, you've all read this stuff from just about every other woman in the world who's got a domestic abuse story. Death threats, restraining orders, blah blah.

To sum up: it sucked ass.

So, etc., I left, etc. my parents went on suicide watch, and I was convinced that it was all over, this was it: I'd totally failed at being a woman. I couldn't even stay with a guy who everybody said was so incredibly in love with me that I was a selfish bitch to want to leave him. I was cold, frigid, blah blah (again, insert cliche story here). And all I could think was, "Oh, no, if I break up with him, no one else will ever love me. I'll be alone for a long, long, time."

That was pretty much the worst thing that could happen to me, I thought. I'd leave him, and no one would ever love me again.

And you know what: I stared that one in the face, and I made the decision.

Because there's scarier, more terrible shit that can happen to you than not being fem enough to be "loved" by some loser.

When you break, you pretty much have to make a decision: kill yourself and get it over with, or be better.

I chose to be better.

And, "being better" for me, meant being myself. That's me. The person I always thought was me, the one who wanted to torch all of her skirts and jump off bridges and go motorcycle riding and move to Alaska.

Yea. That one.

The feminist one.

And you know what: she's a fuck of a lot better than the person I thought I was supposed to be.

So. Listen up.

Feminist vs. femininity:

No, they aren't either/or. But something else is:

Being who you want to be, and being who you think everyone else thinks you should be.

We (and I include myself in here, every day's a goddamn battle) spend so much time wrapped up in these bullshit articles, these bullshit "studies," these bullshit thoughts about what fucking incompetent, insercure, and infantile people men are, that we're not stopping and stepping back and looking at the real people we've surrounded ourselves with.

If you're with the people from the bullshit articles, find other people. If you're an insecure guy, figure it the fuck out: you don't have to make more money than me, have more degrees than me, be stronger than me. You need a good fucking heart and a passion for being alive - the rest is fucking details.

And women: if he doesn't figure that shit out, IT IS NOT WORTH COMPROMISING YOURSELF SO YOU'LL LOOK LIKE AN MTV GIRL. Dump him. Get your shit together. Figure out what you can do on your own. Surround yourself with good friends. Question your sexuality: if you're lucky, you'll find that maybe you're not into guys as much as you thought you were (I still sometimes wish I'd wake up one morning and "turn into a lesbian." Can anyone recommend a starter kit?). And even though those relationships won't be any easier than any other relationship, at least you'll have a lot more to talk about.

As for me, yea, sure, these articles piss me off. They make me question myself. But you know what, after that intital, "Oh, fuck it, I'm throwing in the towel" feeling, I rememeber where I've been, who I could be, and remember why the hell I'm here and how I got to this point, and you know what?

Every damn thing is worth it. The jeans. The no-makeup. The boxing classes.

Cause you know what? I secretly like the way I look. I've always liked my breast size, I have the birthing hips that populated the West, if I have to go butch and scary and intimidating, I can do it. I like my red shoes. I like my square-heeled boots. I like being smart. I like reading books. I like being able to figure shit out. I like the fact that Blaine asks me, "Is this smart person lingo?" I like this person I made, and I gotta tell you, I'm getting really fucking sick and tired of a bunch of wackos blaring at me that I have to hate myself because I turn down dates and don't obsess about a boob job.

Fuckers.

30 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

Anonymous said...

Kameron, you are gorgeous and wonderful just as you are. I love your stories and your writing, and the fact that you're a strong, independent, neat person who knows who she is. And I don't even really know you. If I can think that, not even knowing you, then I'm sure those who do know you are even more impressed.

Screw anyone who doesn't think you're awesome - just as you are. 

Posted by donna

Anonymous said...

Bravo!

Aside from that, I'm practically speechless that you've figured out at 25 what most women never understand. All anyone ever really has is themselves.
 

Posted by Diane

Anonymous said...

I predict a slew of readers hitting on you now...not that's what you've said you want or need. :)

You covered a lot of ground in your post (um, is this part of the new, 'reduced' blogging that you talked about recently? heh). Once again, inspiring words.

I guess one thing I'd like to say regarding the beginning of the post is that part of the reason that it's still difficult to fight the 'beauty' myth bullshit is that MEN still buy into it. Not to put all of the responsibility on men, but men are buying into the myth as much as or more than women--instead of just being attracted to women for their own reasons, men are attracted to 'types' that they are told to like. Long story short--men need to fight this stuff, too. I suppose that's obvious, but...I'm just saying.

One more thing, if I may--for me, one of the ways of overcoming all of this bs was to just allow for the possibility that I might not 'end up' with a lover for life; probably I'll have some lovers, but maybe I won't be with somebody all the time, etc. Once I just gave up on the need to have that, and did some of the stuff you mention--maintaining friendships is the biggest part of that, really--I think a lot of the bs fell away. 

Posted by jp

Anonymous said...

Oh, and one more thing--I'll ask my bisexual polyamorous lover for a 'starter kit'; I'm sure she'll have something in mind for you. Heh. 

Posted by jp

Anonymous said...

Hear hear! You put it way better than this writer did, in no small part because you personalized it. Personally, I get a lot of cheap thrills out of "feminine" things like skirts and make-up, but I am also loud-mouthed and opinionated--not feminine at all. I want a day when "weakness" and "woman" are not equivalents and we can just all breathe easier.

I'm glad you're proud of your journey--a lot of us still lurk in shame of our past mistakes made out of naivety. 

Posted by Amanda

Anonymous said...

jp - Oh, lord: netstalkers.

No, being hit on by netstalkers was not the intention of that post... And you're absolutely right about men being "trained" into a "type." I tried to touch on some of that in the post, but as usual, I was too busy being pissed off. I think guys get really confused about the whole, "I like hanging out with this girl. I'm attracted to this girl. My friends are going to give me nothing but shit for going out with a girl who's taller/smarter/heavier/makes more money than me."

Again: I say, figure out what the fuck you want. If you like hanging out with somebody, don't let the fucktards dictate your damn life. No, it's not easy, but at some point, you gotta decide what you want.

And yea, this was supposed to be a day of less blogging, and then I read Brendan's post last night, and tossed and turned about it all night, and it totally tugged at something I'd been mulling over, and offfffff I went...

And yes, I've already been offered a lesbian starter kit by a buddy of mine.... ;)

Diane - yea, I've had a number of women tell me that it's weird I "figured out" this stuff so young. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I hit that "Oh shit" moment when I was 18, not 35 or 40. I got lucky. I don't regret a minute of it, and I'm actually glad it happened at 18 and not 40. Think of the time I'd miss!  

Posted by Kameron Hurley

Anonymous said...

Happy to be one of the hetero buddies in the egalitarian marriage, married to a kickass, beautiful, non-MTV woman who makes a shitload more money than I do and has her own hopes and dreams and aspirations, and who leaves me to handle the little one so she can go do her singing gigs -- and then takes care of the little one while I write later on.

Hopefully someday you'll find some supportive, cool, smart, secure guy who Gets It. And if not, you're kicking ass just fine on your own, and it's their loss, not yours. 

Posted by Patrick

Anonymous said...

Yep, Patrick - yours was one of the marriages I meant!  

Posted by Kameron Hurley

Anonymous said...

As a 50 yr old woman who for some strange reason was born a feminist I love to read the words of young women who do not buy into the "woman as ornament for men" ideal. I agree it is equally oppressive for men. Think of all the shit everyone buys/eats/collects to try and heal themselves for the inherent unhappiness that goes along with these crappy role models for "proper" gender behavior. No wonder corporate America continues to try and seduce us.
You are a wonderful writer. 

Posted by farmer

Anonymous said...

I don't respond much, but I have to respond to this one.

It took me until 2003, when I was 28, to figure out a lot of this stuff. I was a tech SCUBA diver, a pilot, I ran the dog, I had a good job, I kept the house and obsessed about my appearance...and none of this was enough. The person I was involved with actually had the gall to tell me that he felt like people felt *sorry* for him for being involved with me because I'm heavy. Not dangerously or even unattrctively, but heavy, just like everyone in my family. I finally got it, after 6 years.

Now, a bit over a year after that beginning, I own my house, I am working on getting into competitive aerobatic flying, I still have a good job, I'm back to singing, the stress is pretty much gone from my life, and I am happy. Once I got to the point of happy, I ended up meeting someone in choir who has turned out to be pretty damned close to perfect. He likes what I look like, my size, the grey streak in my hair, my complete lack of interest in makeup. He's teaching me about archaeology; I'm teaching him about flying. He likes that I make the money I do because I deal with the house and he deals with the rest of it, and we're both happy with it. If he starts making massive amounts of money, that would be cool - more money to play with. He is not emasculated by anything I am, and we are partners in a way I didn't know was possible. Oh, and he likes it when we get frumpy in the evenings and just hang out. He'd think it was weird if I were constantly on my best behaviour.

I am bi and I have had relationships with both women and men, and both of them have these hangups (except the current one, apparently) and it's hard no matter which sex you deal with.

My dad raised all of the kids in the family as close to the same as possible. I was raised believing that strength and intelligence were good things. My brother said he was spoiled because he expected women to be intelligent after having grown up with us. I spent six years thinking there was something wrong with me; now I'm myself and happy, and I was happy before I got into my current relationship, which lets me know that I chose this rather than being desperate for it.

I don't have any advice. I just wanted to say you have figured it out faster than I did, and you are going the right direction. Being happy with yourself is lasting; being happy because someone else likes you sucks, because your happiness is dependent on their whims. 

Posted by Wendryn

Anonymous said...

Dammit, Wendryn, I just visited your site, and now I want to learn how to fly a plane.

Fuck. Something else to put on the list... ;) Glad you're here. It's funny - the best thing about blogs has been finding out just how many fucking awesome people there are out there screwing stuff up for MSN advice columns... what bugs me is this: why aren't we reading about *us* on CNN?  

Posted by Kameron Hurley

Anonymous said...

:)

Flying is rather addictive, unfortunately, but it is great fun.

If you're ever in the Reno area I'd be happy to take you for a flight - sunset over Tahoe is pretty incredible.

I like screwing things up for the advice columns - I break just about every rule in the book, and I'm happier than some people I know who have followed all of the rules. I like your writing because you are doing what you want to do and doing it well, and people like you keep me going on days when I look at magazine covers and feel like I don't fit in this world. You are making life work, and that is inspiring. 

Posted by Wendryn

Anonymous said...

Wendryn - if my company ever signs for a project around Reno, I'm totally going to take you up on this.

Glad you like reading over here. I know how important it is to look out into the world and see people fucking things up: reminds everybody of the possibility of living some other way, and I think that's important.

I know I'm the same way: when the world goes to fuck and my closest friends are all freaked out and feeling kicked down, logging on and checking out what other people are doing can make sleeping at night a lot easier...  

Posted by Kameron Hurley

Anonymous said...

I feel inclined to disagree. I don't see that femininity and feminism are incompatible. They can be if you believe everyone has to follow a role (feminist, bimbo, housewife, executive, liberal, conservative, boy, girl), but human beings are flexible enough to become all those things (with a little help from medical science when it comes to the gender reassignment bit). That people don't is because saying 'I am this' or 'I am that' serves as a comfort blanket. It makes us feel secure to pigeon-hole ourselves, limiting ourselves to comfortable patterns of behaviour. We like others to do the same - we don't care how other people behave as much as we like them to behave predictably.

Which is why anti-conformists fit comfortably into society. An anti-conformist's self-identity is defined just as much by the prevailing culture as a conformist - they just say this is what I'm not, rather than this is what I am. They may be standing on the other side of the fence, but you know where they're standing. Meanwhile, the non-comformist is off somewhere else, defining themselves, and who knows what the heck they're thinking? 

Posted by Vincent

Anonymous said...

Wow.
Just....wow.
Thank you for this.  

Posted by toffeegyrl

Anonymous said...

Kameron, I just have to tell you something. Whenever I start feeling awful, I come here and read something. If it's possible to love someone you've never met just because of what they've written, then damn it, I love you. I'm not hitting on you, no net-stalking here. I'm just quite thankful I stumbled on your blog and after reading this post of yours I'm full of some fine, feminine, feminist, kick-ass, creative energy. As my girls would say, you rock. 

Posted by bluesmama

Anonymous said...

You seem like an amazing and brilliant woman. I admire brilliance and articulateness, and I know that while this was not your first concern, you will have love and be loved.

I put up with men's shit (and the shit women can do to each other) for a while, then I suddenly smartened up. I met some people here and there but... whatever. I finally met the man who would become my husband, and he loved that I was sharp, witty and driven. He loved my big fat ass, he loved that I made more money than him - after all, the more the merrier, right?

There is more, but I don't know you and I am rambling anyway. Our society may suck for who we want to be, and make it harder to fulfill this social part of ourselves, but it can happen. It has happened for this fat girl.

(And no - my husband isn't a loser. Just a guy who can see beauty in forms besides what he is told he should, and not be intimidated by a woman with more earning potential.) 

Posted by Beverly

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I realize that I live in a lucky little bubble. When you said:

"My friends are going to give me nothing but shit for going out with a girl who's taller/smarter/heavier/makes more money than me"

I just immediately thought to myself, I just haven't had that experience with male (or any!) friends of mine regarding women I've dated who were taller/smarter/heavier/money-making/whatever. I've certainly had male friends say, "Wow, you're lucky" for most reasons, but never any condemnation. This is one of those, "Does that REALLY happen?!" sorts of moments for me, I think...of course I believe that it does, I just don't have any experience of that (that I recognize). Maybe this is a skewed sample (most assuredly, really), but do any of the other men who read this blog experience this? 

Posted by jp

Anonymous said...

That was pretty fucking cool. We must have been living the same life. I like your blog and your writing. Thanks for sharing your important story. You helped to validate what I've been feeling for a while now. Now I can articulate it. 

Posted by Nikki

Anonymous said...

Hi, I stumbled across your blog. I like it. I know what you mean about being glad you had your "aha" moment at 18 instead of later. I got it in waves and wasn't fully drenched until over 30. Better late than never... An only child, I lived lots of my life alone. Benefit: insulated from sexism, I grew up to be myself. Downside: insulated from sexism, I didn't recognize it for what it was when it happened. Not always. Not right away. The femininity problem was crushing though. I wasn't "feminine" and tried my best to become so, then didn't like the result.

Anyway, I'm almost 50 and so glad to have some freedom from female oppression at last. I have a little oasis with my DH and I like what I'm becoming even though I had a terribly nasty thought about the sum total of my life so far: that if I'd been born a man, right now I'd be thanking God I hadn't been born a woman.

At this age, I won't be setting the world on fire but I plan to do the best with the rest.

Good for you. It's us women banding together who will change the world.

And I hope you don't mind the gritty post. I'm in cabin fever country and lack a decent social life. This is it!

 

Posted by Margaret

Anonymous said...

Nikki & Margaret - good to have you here. Margaret, after living in Fairbanks, Alaska for two years, I understand the cabin-bound mentality. Post away. I'm also available by e-mail (listed when you click on my profile) if you want to bullshit the snowbound days away.

As I've said, yea, one of the best things about blogs is finding people who've had those "aha" moments: you don't feel quite so alone.  

Posted by Kameron Hurley

Anonymous said...

There are no words to say how much I admire you for writing this post. You pretty much summed up what I've been trying to explain to my fellow girlfriends these past days.

Keep writing, I'll keep on reading ... :)


Daria. 

Posted by Daria Marx

Anonymous said...

There are no words to say how much I admire you for writing this post. You pretty much summed up what I've been trying to explain to my fellow girlfriends these past days.

Keep writing, I'll keep on reading ... :)


Daria. 

Posted by Daria Marx

Anonymous said...

Yes, indeed, yes. Oh, so much yes. I cannot give you enough yes.

Can I have another shot of novocaine? I believe you've hit a nerve.

When I was very young, I set a Baby Tenderlove on tire because I wanted a Tonka dumptruck like my older brother's. I'd TOLD my mother I wanted a Tonka dumptruck like my older brother Roy's for Christmas.
She didn't get me one. She bought me a Baby Tenderlove. (These days I have a dumptruck of my own that actually dumps and everything. It is not made by Tonka. It is made by Ford. It's got a snowplow that goes on the front and 4WD and dual gas tanks, one of which leaks. I use it to plow the road to my house in the winter.)

When I was still very young, my grandpa got a bulldozer. He gave both of my brothers rides on it, while I stood there and watched. He did not ask me if I wanted a ride. I asked my mother if he didn't ask me because I was a girl. According to my mother, I was four. (We still own that bulldozer -- they last a long time if they're taken care of -- and these days I take my own damn rides on the bulldozer. Boo-YAH! They are a lot of fun on ice.)

When I was in fourth grade, I beat EVERYONE in the class (twenty-five kids) at arm-wrestling, including the guys. And I was proud of that. Still am. Richard Brallier, I'm sorry I whupped your ass in the finals, but I *could* and I wasn't going to pretend to lose so that you could feel good about yourself.

When I was in junior high, trying out for cheerleading was what girls *did*, even the fat ones. Everyone tried out for cheerleading. I just... couldn't do that. I couldn't. It's a hell of a thing to be thirteen and the only girl in the entire grade who is not trying out for the cheerleading squad, but trying out for the cheerleading squad would have been worse.

In highschool, I had a better car ('72 Impala convertible, 327) than the boys and I beat them with it (we raced on the straightaway four-lane outside of town, which had a mountain on one side and a river on the other, so no cop problems) because nobody's riced-out four cylinder was going to beat my baby.

In college, I majored in English. I was good at it, and it was easy. There was beer. Eventually, there was a boyfriend. He was a compsci major. I knew that relationship was doomed when, one afternoon, I was hanging out with him in the lab while he worked on a project that wasn't running right. We'd been there two hours, the damn thing crashing on the same loop, over and over, and finally I got tired of that and said "Look, here's your problem, in this loop. Fix the exit conditions and you should be fine". He was livid. *sigh* I wasn't trying to make him mad. I was trying to get his ass out of the lab so that we could go get some dinner and have sex. I didn't get dinner OR sex. These days he's married to someone else and has three kids with her. I bet she doesn't fix his computer programs.

I moved back home to my small town and started an ISP. I've always been good with machinery and computers. There weren't any national ISPs here, then, and I built a business. One day, I stood at the local Sheetz (like a 7-11) and let two well-meaning men change my tire for me even though I was perfectly capable of doing it myself and I'd said so twice. I was very good and didn't cringe when they
rolled my car off the jack. I did not grab the tire iron from them and club them to death like baby seals when they cross-threaded two of the five lug nuts. I thanked them. *sigh* Probably I should get a medal for this.

Eventually, I dated another guy, one who insisted on building the fires in my fireplace when he visited. Now, I heated my house with that fireplace and built fires in it every single day of the heating season when he wasn't there. I was quite good at building fires in the fireplace and I could do it efficiently and with a minimal loss of cardboard. However, when he visited, I stood there in my fifty-degree house and let him use up every scrap of cardboard I had so that HE could be the one to build the fire. (I am not sure, to this day, why I put up with this. Temporary insanity?)

This fall, my cousin came up to her cabin with some of her friends to cut firewood. I stopped by to help out. We drove the first pickup load of wood to the cabin and the boys threw all the wood off the truck so that the girls could stack the wood while the boys were out getting another load. I had my maul in the car, so I dug it out and got to work making big ones into little ones that would fit in her stove. By the time the boys got back with the second load of wood, we had the first load split and stacked. *grin* One of the boys asked if he could borrow my maul and give it a go. Judging from how he went about it, he thought that the proper way to split wood was to whale away at it as hard as he could. (This is not the proper way.) I watched for about four swings and I broke: "No, no, no, that will never do. Look, you're going about it all wrong. Would you like some pointers?"

I have never been very good at being a proper girl. However, I have always done a pretty tolerable job of being myself. I think more people should try being themselves. They'd probably be happier.

-Teep

PS: If you find the Lesbian Starter Kit, let me know. I could use one. 

Posted by Teep

Anonymous said...

am reminded of a talk that Leo Buscaglia (sp?!) gave some 30 years ago about being yourself. it ran along the lines of not trying to "be a peach person for a peach-lover when you're really an apple; you'll never be nearly as good a peach as the apple you could have been." (only longer and more life-affirming because it was Leo live)

anyway, keep up the good work!


Posted by acm

Anonymous said...

*Tsk.* Call me simple; my definition of "feminine" is anything that I do, since I am "female." That's anything and everything from cooking, dressmaking, cleaning, riding, shooting, fencing, roofing and wrestling, to name just a few.

And my definition of "masculine" is anything that a "male" would do, which (as I ponder the men I know) just happens to include: cooking, dressmaking, cleaning, riding, shooting, fencing, roofing and wrestling, to name just a few.

And if I'm going to paint, spackle and grout myself (and I do), it's so that I conform with my own idea of what is "beautiful," which, as it happens, is not the current standard. I don't see any need to conform my grooming to anyone else's expectation of either feminine or feminist; I've been a feminist all my life, and I long ago figured out that whatever I did, as a female, was therefore feminine (which would include whatever level or style of grooming I would choose).

People shouldn't be put in boxes. That's what happens just before you go into the ground. 

Posted by Dolley

Anonymous said...

Rock on. 

Posted by Meguey

Anonymous said...

Kameron:

You said a mouthful!

You are so lucky that you discovered the truth relatively early. It was the hard way, but not the worst way. At least you found out. You will learn in time, I think, to really ignore the articles and images that tell you that you are inadequate. They are everywhere. You will eventually just get plain ole angry. Personally, my blood boils that there are young girls daily being exposed to those damaging images, being steeped in them, telling themselves everyday that they are ugly, fat, and unworthy of love. That to be a "real" girl or a "beautiful" girl, they have to be thin, wear shoes that will give them bunions, like boys, have long, blonde hair.

It wasn't until a few years ago, that I realized that it was OK to have curly hair, be loud, not "go with the flow," question authority, be rebellious, be 5'8. I don't have to be a fragile flower to be a woman. I don't have to like men either.

I remember that odd feeling I got as a kid and then as a teen when my friends were talking about clothes, boys (gimme a break!) and fantasizing about what their weddings were going to be like. Because I, like every little girl in the world, was coerced into believing that this fairy tale nonsense was every girl's dream, I thought something was wrong with me. Why was I bored and uninterested? The real sin is the way society sells out women from birth, coercing them into buying into this crazy idea of something understood as "femininity," but what is really something cooked up by male culture to keep women in a position of subservience. The bad news is that the majority of women have bought it hook line and sinker.

Sorry for the rant!

 

Posted by meghan

Anonymous said...

Kameron:

You said a mouthful!

You are so lucky that you discovered the truth relatively early. It was the hard way, but not the worst way. At least you found out. You will learn in time, I think, to really ignore the articles and images that tell you that you are inadequate. They are everywhere. You will eventually just get plain ole angry. Personally, my blood boils that there are young girls daily being exposed to those damaging images, being steeped in them, telling themselves everyday that they are ugly, fat, and unworthy of love. That to be a "real" girl or a "beautiful" girl, they have to be thin, wear shoes that will give them bunions, like boys, have long, blonde hair.

It wasn't until a few years ago, that I realized that it was OK to have curly hair, be loud, not "go with the flow," question authority, be rebellious, be 5'8. I don't have to be a fragile flower to be a woman. I don't have to like men either.

I remember that odd feeling I got as a kid and then as a teen when my friends were talking about clothes, boys (gimme a break!) and fantasizing about what their weddings were going to be like. Because I, like every little girl in the world, was coerced into believing that this fairy tale nonsense was every girl's dream, I thought something was wrong with me. Why was I bored and uninterested? The real sin is the way society sells out women from birth, coercing them into buying into this crazy idea of something understood as "femininity," but what is really something cooked up by male culture to keep women in a position of subservience. The bad news is that the majority of women have bought it hook line and sinker.

Sorry for the rant!

 

Posted by meghan

Anonymous said...

I went through the phase of trying to fit into the society's definition of 'beauty'.
I'm a big girl and have tried all sorts of diets just so that I could lose my weight. But really, my weight problem is much more of genetic problem than that of overeating.
I've since given up trying to be a 'barbie-doll' that men would love to show off as a prized trophy.
Nowadays, I prefer to be just who I really am - smart, charming and incredibly witty. Not some waif-like models. And if guys fail to see that side of me, it's their fucking loss, not mine.

I'm incredibly inspired by your writing and trust me, you are a very beautiful woman. 

Posted by Francy