Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Feminism Vs. Life...
One of the central themes of this course has been to figure out what the definition of feminism is. Is it a word to describe the three waves? Perhaps it is simply another word for lesbianism? Does it mean GLBTF??
As the semester has progressed, life experiences have combined with the course readings to help me find me own definition of feminism. To me, feminism is having the right to choose what you want to be in and do with your life. Unfortunately, what I have discovered is that just because you chase after something that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be given to you.
Throughout the course of this semester, I have lost a friendship because a friend called me a “bitch” when I told her not to go back to her abusive relationships, I quit my job for a man I still don’t have the heart to let go of, and I have been invited to two weddings, out of which I have learned three things. First, a true friend would never turn her back on you, as my friend later showed to me when she called me back later that week. Secondly, love is hard to find but even more difficult to let go of, as I discovered this week when a boy I used to talk to called to check on me. Thirdly, you should always keep searching for love and relationships because in the end, everything will be okay, as I have witnessed in my friend who got married after four years of being completely single.
As most feminists have been faced with these issues of oppression in many different ways- marriage, politics in the workplace, sexuality, and feminism versus oppression- it would appear that my current emotional state would be understood quite well by feminists. The answer that I think they would give to me is a big hug, a swift kick in the butt, and a sign that says “I shall conquer.”
It is my belief that sometimes a woman just needs to be alone. If a woman is never alone with herself, never makes herself accept her flaws and individual issues, then how can she ever be happy? In the first wave of feminism, as shown by the film “Iron-Jawed Angels”, women wanted the right to vote not to upset anybody but to have the ability to think for themselves. They didn’t want to live vicariously through their husbands. They wanted a say in the way of politics. It was about not only having a voice, but also it was about finding a voice.
I have found out that like the women of the first wave, I have not found my voice. In one chapter of The F Word, it talks about how women today are not voting and are therefore holding us back. Well, guess what? I didn’t vote this year, and I believe the chapter has hit the nail but missed the head. Perhaps the reason women don’t vote anymore is because they don’t know what they want. In a world pitted against it, women are being forced to choose (and not in a good way).
If we go out every night of the week and seek out a husband, we are labeled as sluts, as Valenti points out in He’s A Stud, She’s A Slut. If we claim to be feminists, people assume we hate the penis and are a bunch of lesbians or asexual freaks whose mothers have screwed up royally in their raising of offspring. Should we try to make our own way in life and do both marriage and be independent thinkers, we hit the glass ceiling and must choose between the life of the workaholic and the life of a soccer mom, as pointed out to me through Belkin’s Opt-Out Revolution article.
Not only do I have all of this to worry about, but also I get the added concern of what if I never marry? I’ve never had a relationship, and it doesn’t seem like God is planning on answering my prayers about Lee Funderburk anytime soon, seeing as how his text message last night (the first time I have heard from him in two weeks) said “Busy at work and need my space...”
So, here’s what I am thinking. These women obviously are the ones who have done the research and know what they are talking about, so I am going to say for the record that I am a beginning feminist. I was not a feminist before because I did not want to have a life. I did not want to think for myself or have my own life. I wanted to have my own husband, not my own life.
However, my circumstances combined with the people I have met through this course have taught me that it is better to be a free thinker and have your own life than it is to live vicariously through other people. People let you down. If you have your own life outside of everybody else then you always can have yourself to fall back on.
For this reason, I must choose to be a feminist. I don’t think I am choosing this because I want to. Rather, I am doing this because I am the only constant in my life. Friends may not be there forever. I may never be married, never have a family, but I will always have myself. For that reason alone, I need to have my own rights and must be able to fight for and take care of myself.
At first glance, I thought that second-wave feminists had it all wrong. I thought they were the ones who turned women into the “vengeful sluts” of Valenti’s men. However, I don’t think that the second wave wanted to only liberate us sexually to allow us to go out and copulate with every man we could get our hands on. Rather, I think the idea of the time was to give us more choices. They wanted women like me to have the choice to wait until marriage. They wanted us to choose whether to have children after a violent rape.
Also, they wanted us to be able to have the choice about whether or not to have a family. Finally, they wanted us to have a say in sexual relations. As stated by Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman,” “I say who, I say when, I say where.” That was the idea. And that idea is also an idea that I support.
Contemporary feminists are all about taking care of us physically, emotionally, and financially. We are capable human beings with bodies, feelings, and independent needs. By giving ourselves (and other people) the freedom to do what we need to do, we are creating a society full of self-sufficient, reliable networks in which to lean during times of hardship.
The discipline of Women’s Studies teaches people to think for themselves. During preparations for the group project this semester, I had a breakdown. Yep, a complete breakdown. I had no man to lean on, but I did have the girls in my group. Lee had not sent me any contact in over a week by that point, and when I got to Kendra’s house to work on my power point slides, I broke into tears.
Kendra had been through a similar incident with the man she used to date, and we were able to help each other. That was one of the greatest things I have ever experienced. Women who reach out to each other in times of turmoil is something I think we really need more of and can get through acts of feminism. If we spent all of our time clinging to men and hating other women, we would miss out on so many friends and moments of importance in our lives.
So, in a nutshell, here is my answer to whether or not I am a feminist. I am a newborn feminist. I am not sure if I am still trying to learn how to hold the bottle, or if I am know making an attempt to crawl, but I do know that I am a feminist.
This is not to say that I do not still want Lee or that I will not still wait on him to come back to me. Also, I am not saying that I am giving up on my desire for a family. What I am saying is that I need to be able to have a backup plan in case these situations do not work out. As a feminist, I am lobbying for my ability to choose whether or not I will have these things in life. Feminism is about empowerment, not lesbianism.
Furthermore, my choice to be a feminist will not affect my life unless I allow it to. If I don’t want to take another step, I do not have to. If I choose not to support a campaign, it is my right as a feminist to say no. The ability to say NO. The ability to say I don’t want to. The ability to say I don’t need you; I don’t have to have you. This is what feminism gives me. It gives me power.
As stated in The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, “The affluent, educated, liberated women of the First World, who can enjoy freedoms unavailable to any women ever before, do not feel as free as they want to. And they can no longer restrict to the subconscious their sense that this lack of freedom has something to do with it...” In other words, now is the time that we, the new generation of feminists, start picking up our signs and moving forward. We need to start telling our stories and waving our banners. For it is only through educating others that we can help ourselves win the battle of oppression.
The five articles that had the greatest impact on me this semester were The Opt-Out Revolution, He’s A Stud, She’s A Slut, Fresh Lipstick, The Beauty Myth, and The Changing Shape of Relationships from “The F Word.”
I have chosen these readings because they show how women can become inferior to men and how to battle against that. They are connected through the theory that men being chivalrous and being respectful are two different things, and a woman can be single and not necessarily a lesbian or have something wrong with her.
In the Opt-Out Revolution, Lisa Belkin argues that women have to make a choice between motherhood and work, and oftentimes, they choose their families over their jobs. She talks about the repercussions of the decision and questions why the workplace is not more conducive to the idea of the working mother.
In He’s A Stud, She’s A Slut, Jessica Valenti shows the problems with established differences between men and women, and she shows how placing women on a pedestal while allowing men to be controlling is not in itself the answer. This article has shown me that above all else, the woman can have control for herself and still be deserving of love from her partner. It is not necessarily being needy that gets a man- perhaps for some men, but not necessarily for getting the man that a woman needs and deserves.
Fresh Lipstick shows that a feminist does not have to be any certain type of person. Men can be feminists. Extremely feminine women with large amounts of make-up can be feminists. Lesbians, punk rockers, recovering anorexics, and even housewives can be feminists. It’s all about the attitude that is possessed. It’s about having rights and being allowed to be an individual irrespective of what another person or governing body chooses to say or do.
The Beauty Myth is all about the concept of making a woman into a product. The article talks about how women are made into a thing rather than a person in order to sell something. Because of this, women are seen as less human than their male counterparts. It also goes on to show that there could be a link between rape and this concept of dehumanizing the female body.
Last but not least is the chapter in the F-Word about the changing shape of relationships. This chapter in the book really grabbed me because it dealt with the women’s feelings about remaining single. Some women feel that being single is more empowering than getting married and raising the family. The concept of being the perfect housewife and soccer mom does not really apply to this type of woman. She wants a career and independence, and she is not afraid of being alone.
These articles have really stood out to me because they introduce the idea of being lonely versus being independent. In my experiences, I have taken being alone to mean that there was something wrong with me. A man doesn’t love me because I am not worthy of his love. When perhaps the truth was that I am too good for him and don’t need him to be with me, I always have placed the blame on myself.
However, the argument that these articles make is that you don’t have to be lonely. Sometimes you are better off alone. When a woman settles, bad things happen. She is not satisfied, and this could lead to rape, divorce, depression, or perhaps even suicide.
As long as we as women believe that we need a man in order to make us happy, I am told we will never get there. Happiness comes from the inside out, not the other way around. As put to me by one of my fellow classmates this semester, if you are not happy with yourself, you won’t be happy when you have a man knocking on your doorstep and calling up your phone. A man is supposed to add to a woman’s happiness and sense of fulfillment. He is there to complete you, to make you whole- not to create you or give you life. A man is not God, nor should a woman expect a man to fill that void for you.
In Valenti’s article, she talks about how women are always being pitted against each other. I admit that when I see a woman walking by and she sees me staring, she automatically grabs his hand or leans in closer and the negative thoughts just start coming into my head. Or when I notice a stay-at-home mom out to lunch with her “family.” It usually involves her staring at her five-carat ring while she picks at her grilled chicken salad. Her children, being aided by her nanny, in their best Ralph Lauren polos and Christian Dior sweaters, have no manners and scream when they don’t get their way at the table, and yet, everybody in the restaurant seems to be smiling at her “accomplishment.” If they aren’t thinking lucky you, then they are too busy in jealous thoughts and wishing she would die in a fatal car accident so that they can take her place.
Valenti also argues that because of this placing ourselves in defensive mode rather than being on the same side of allowing ourselves to live our lives as independent, free-willed and freethinking adults, we are doing ourselves a disservice.
As she puts it in her chapter about women being viewed as being slutty when men are seen as playing the field, “First and foremost, stop calling other women sluts! It doesn’t behoove us to bash each other, gals. And speak out when you hear men do the same. “
At the same time, women really ought to stop feeling that they must choose to either be independent and happy or be married and stuck to a man’s side. Why can’t a married woman be independent? Is there a rule that says that when a woman marries, she will lose herself in the husband? From what I have learned about men, they do not want their women to lose her own self in them because they would be simply living through their husbands rather than living for themselves. Living vicariously through another person is not the way to live.
In Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner’s chapter in the F-Word, she sums it all up when she states, “Many women aren’t waiting for Prince Charming to buy them a ring and are purchasing their own bling-bling. Right-hand diamond rings are a hip, fashionable commodity with the singleton set. Single women have thrown off the cultural stigma of being an “old maid,” and many women are delaying marriage, choosing not to marry, and defining new ways to be in relationships.”
In other words, gone are the days when women have to be married to be happy. A man will not make you happy forever. As Joni said one day during class, “my husband is a part of my life, not my life. He makes me happy, but I wouldn’t necessarily say he completed me. My daughter matters more to me, because she is something that I have created.”
When I asked her if she would want her husband to care more for her or the child, her immediate answer was “Oh, I absolutely would want my husband to care more for my daughter. Emily is my life, and I wouldn’t want him to put more emphasis on me than her because I certainly wouldn’t place more emphasis on him than on my daughter.”
This will impact my future path, because it has shown me that the feelings that I have are not necessarily the feelings that I must have. Rather, these are feelings that have been introduced to me through outside factors. To be honest, I do not feel that I will change overnight. I think it will take a lot more disappointment and heartbreak before I learn to be my own person and stop waiting for my knight in shining armor to ride up on his steed, slay the dragon, and carry me off to his castle where we watch the sunset and live happily ever after.
As far as my future career path, this is definitely still up in the air. I wanted to be married before the age of twenty-five, and I never would have considered still being single. However, the days of my being an ostridge with her head in the sand are coming to an end.
I will be twenty-three this year, and that only gives me two years to reach my goal. What I am starting to figure out is that life is not always what you thought it would be, and sometimes, you have to make lemonade with a batch of onions. These articles, if nothing else, prove to me that there are women out there who have made it to a point in their lives where they are happy being alone and don’t even want a man anymore. It is my hope that I will find a way to be happy with myself and no longer fear the standards set up by the beauty myth. I don’t want to wait for a man to make me happy. Rather, I want to be the one the man hopes to wait for.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Fighting Anorexia
Sunday, April 12, 2009
The Eternal Feminine
The scene opens after she and her husband, Juan, have "consummated" their marriage. Juan was shown pacing the floor in a sudden rage, while Lupita, on the other hand, was pouring plasma on her veil to signify her virginity to him. There was never any reference made as to whether or not Juan was a virgin at the time of copulation. However, Lupita was expected to prove her virginity. This shows a double standard between Lupita and Juan. Not only was Lupita going to be expected by her husband to be a virgin, but also she would be rejected if she proved to be touched by another man. However, there was no reference at all made to Juan's purity. In fact, he sounded as if he were experienced and knew what it was like to be with a virgin given the fact that he didn't believe that Lupita was truly pure.
Juan asked if Lupita was a virgin, and also, he calls her "Shameless hussy!" if she enjoyed the exchange. Lupita takes the bait and states that not only did she not like it, but it pained her and she didn't want to do it anymore.
This draws up a red flag for me as a reader. Calling your wife names in today's world is considered a form of abuse. To be more specific, Juan was being verbally abusive to his wife. Yet, Lupita just grins and bears it. She never chastised him for calling her names, and she also didn't sink to his level by pacing the floor criticizing him for not being pure. Lupita showed in this part of the passage that she could rise above the situation and be a better person. Or, perhaps, she was just expecting Juan to act this way, and since it was an accepted role for a new husband, she didn't expect him to act differently. If this were a correct observation, it would mean that women like Lupita were expecting verbal abuse from the moment they said "I do."
Juan enjoyed these statements and remarked that he would not mind taking it from her if she chose not to give it to him. He also stated to her that soon she would be complaining about how often they have sexual intercourse rather than the pain involved in copulating. This shows signs of another form of abuse- physical abuse.
In today's world, if a woman says no and a man still takes sex from her, that is a form of rape. Anytime a woman is made to have sexual relations of any kind with anyone, that is rape. Juan simply threw it out there, and Lupita didn't seem to be upset by it. This culture is showing that not only would it be okay to verbally assault your wife, but it should not be an issue to rape a wife if she says she will not have sexual relations with you.
The problem between Juan and Lupita is that their relationship is one of abuse. Juan is the abuser, and Lupita is the victim. As described in "The F Word: Feminism in Jeopardy," "Through the hard work of women like [Betty] Friedan in the second wave, there have been tremendous changes in the experiences and expectations of marriage. It is no longer common for women to lose their identity shortly after walking down the aisle. Young women are now in the process of redefining marriage so that it works for them."
It goes on to state that "Being single really makes you a stronger person, because there isn't someone else to rely on," and "there's a lot of freedom and independence that goes along with being single- not being accountable to anyone and having the freedom to pretty much do whatever you want, whenever you want."
I am not arguing that marriage is a horrible idea because your husband will abuse you. Nor am I going to say that women everywhere should stay single for life because it is the only way you can feel free to live your life and be your own person. What I am saying is that each person is different. What works for one woman could be the downfall of somebody else. Rather than judging people and choosing to compartmentalize the genders, we should strive to ensure happiness. We are all created differently and serve different functions. By placing us in boxes, the society as a whole will be weakened. Perhaps what is needed for Lupita is a more Americanized way of thinking. It seems she could use "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Women are people, not cattle. They should be treated as individuals in the same fashion as men.