Ida B. Wells Barnett (1862-1931)

The other day, I read about Ida B Wells.

"For speaking plainly about rape, sex and murder, Wells lost her home and her livelihood. For the rest of her life, she had to defend her reputation against both white and black people who called her a "negro adventuress" and "Notorious Courtesan." A black newspaper editor suggested that the public should "muzzle" that "animal from Memphis," and the New York Times dubbed her "a slanderous and dirty-minded mulatress." " [1]

(For those you who are wondering, a mulatress is the daughter of one white parent and one black parent.)

"Ida B Wells was a fearless anti-lynching crusader, suffragist, women's rights advocate, journalist, and speaker. She stands as one of our nation's most uncompromising leaders and most ardent defenders of democracy. She was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1862 and died in Chicago, Illinois 1931 at the age of sixty-nine," says Lee D. Baker. [2]

Like Gandhi, one of the incidents in her life which propelled her towards activism involvoed discrimination while travelling. She "became a public figure in Memphis when, in 1884, she led a campaign against racial segregation on the local railway. A conductor of the Chesapeake, Ohio & South Western Railroad Company told her to give up her seat on the train to a white man and ordered her into the smoking or "Jim Crow" car, which was already crowded with other passengers. The federal Civil Rights Act of 1875—which banned discrimination on the basis of race, creed, or color in theaters, hotels, transport, and other public accommodations—had just been declared unconstitutional in the Civil Rights Cases (1883), and several railroad companies were able to continue racial segregation of their passengers." [3] When Wells refused to comply, the conductor dragged her out of the car with the assistance of two other men. She sued the railroad but although won in the local circuit court, the Supreme Court of Tennessee reversed the lower court's ruling in 1887.

She criticised lynching and exposed the myth that black people were lynched only when they ravished white women or did something else along those lines for what it was: a lie.

She also travelled throughout America and went to Britain twice to speak against lynching. In addition to this, she worked was a suffragette and, along with Jane Addams, stopped the establishment of segregated schools in Chicago.

Today, she is remembered as a crusader for civil rights and democracy.

Links:
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/10/AR2008041003101.html
[2] http://www.duke.edu/~ldbaker/classes/AAIH/caaih/ibwells/ibwbkgrd.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells

Not a Post Feminist World

I just came across a link on Quizlaw.com in which the author points out that we aren't really living in a post-feminist world.

"I’m used to seeing ugly misogyny in the gossip world, but aside from the usual right-wing nutjobs, I’m not as accustomed to seeing it as much in politics. However, New York Magazine ran a fascinating piece over the weekend on Hillary Clinton and the way her candidacy has brought the sexist douchebags out of the woodwork..."

Following the link which spoke about the gossip world, I reached an article which speculates about whether Ellen Page is gay -- the evidence: she apparently hasn't shaved her armpits in some film. (And, incidentally, if you're like me and have no idea who Ellen Page is, wikipedia has an article about her.)

It reminded me of an amazing post I read a few days ago about the politics of body hair by Anji in which she says:

"The hair on our heads must be our ‘crowning glory’; the rest of our bodies must be as bald as a newborn. Much of this can be attributed to the fetishisation of youth. Like glossy hair, bright eyes and unlined skin, hairlessness gives the body the appearance and feel of a young girl’s, or what I once saw described on the website of a hair removal product as a ‘prepubescent appeal’. It is curious that in a society where paedophilia is so reviled and such a huge problem, it is thought of as harmless and ordinary that men live out their paraphilic fantasies by requiring that the women they are exposed to look as young as possible.

... A woman, taught throughout her life that beauty through youth is her ultimate goal and that upon ageing her beauty dies, may feel compelled to remove every trace of adulthood within her control - and hair removal is so easy, so readily available, and she is so socialised to believe it is normal, that she reaches for the razor."

Anji's post doesn't really talk about being perceived as homosexual because of not removing body hair but I think it is interesting that to be considered a heterosexual woman one has to look a certain way. In fact to be considered a woman at all, one has to conform to various norms.

One woman discovered that the hard way: Khadijah Farmer was thrown out of a ladies' restroom Caliente Cab Company after New York's gay pride parade last June because the bouncer thought that she was a man and refused to look at her identification.

Anji's post: shutupsitdown.wordpress.com/2008/04/07/the-politics-of-body-hair/

Personal Safety for Survivors of Rape

Excerpts from a post by Marcella Chester at abyss2hope:

“[S]ome rape survivors unfortunately become repeat rape victims with different perpetrators. …. This is more than random bad luck. …. The trauma of rape can leave victims disoriented and defenseless.

…. My safety is a higher priority than some man’s hurt feelings. Any man who demands that I put his feelings above my safety is only reinforcing my reasons to distrust him. ….

Reliable allies don’t undermine a survivor’s hyper vigilance or ask to be exempted from those viewed with less trust than before a rape. ….

Because of the trauma rape victims have experienced and the muddiness that can come from that trauma many rape victims may question their perceptions. Their rapists have a clear motivation for trying to distort reality and they have the benefit of not being traumatized. ….

[A]fter my first rape … [s]everal men told me flat out that they wouldn’t touch me even if was consenting as long as I was jail bait. Some men didn’t have this level of ethical behavior and took my passivity which came with ineffective coping mechanisms as permission to use my body. …. Also I had learned that rape didn’t hurt as much if I didn’t try to fight it.

During my teenage years there was only one guy who required enthusiastic consent and verification with a clear opportunity for me to safely change my mind. Now I won’t settle for anyone less respectful or less ethical. ….

It is the vulnerability due to trauma which brings out so many predators. …. Because the rape survivor may still be lost in the trauma which follows rape, alcohol and overt violence may not be needed.

Quietly raping a sober survivor who barely knows which way is up is real violence."

Read the whole post: abyss2hope.blogspot.com/2008/03/advice-for-rape-survivors-personal.html (It’s worth it: these excerpts constitute only about 1/8th of the original.)

Surviving rape is difficult. Surviving it a second time around can be devastating not just because of the rape in itself but because it can make the victim wonder, on one hand, if there is something inherently wrong with her to cause her to have been raped, if she provoked the attack in some way, if she was to blame.
And on the other hand, the fact that the second rape may not have been as violent as the first because of her being relatively passive possibly due to being too disoriented or too frightened to fight back could, in a culture which treats only violent rape as rape, quite easily cause her to begin to question whether she’s making a mountain out of a molehill, whether she has been raped at all.

About Judging Women …and Rambling On

This post began as a response to Nita’s comments…
Thank you for your comments.
I’ve never understood why women are sometimes so nasty towards each other either. In fact, in my own life, many of the cruelest things I’ve heard said about women are by other women in situations where the men I interact with quite simply wouldn’t say anything simply to avoid being rude / inappropriate –- many of my male acquaintances, for example, do not use language which is ‘coarse’ in front of me and certainly wouldn’t dream of using words like bitch / slut etc. within my hearing (although there is no doubt in my mind that they do use them when I’m out of earshot).
I too doubt that men are as judgmental about other men although I think that that may have to do with men being allowed more leeway in general. So even if most men allow other men the ordinary liberties which all men are allowed without making any special exceptions, what it amounts to is men being able to ‘get away with’ more, so to speak.
It seems to me that most men very clearly divide women into categories; two categories to be specific: one of sluts, whores, etc. and the other of sisters, mothers, etc.; one category which they fail to treat with even the most basic courtesy and the other which they respect (or claim to respect).
One of the explanations I’ve come across to explain why women are so harsh on each other is because they know that it is extremely easy to go from being treated with respect to not being treated with respect — all it could take is something like having one partner too many — and it is this knowledge that not only makes them realize that their own position is precarious but also encourages them to do whatever it takes to maintain it and denigrate those who fail to do so. After all, minus financial independence, in practical terms, the difference could quite easily determine whether or a woman has a roof over her head.
As far as feminism goes, I dislike having the term ‘feminist’ with all the negative connotations associated with it being applied to me because I don’t see myself believing in anything other than that which the legal and social systems in most parts of the world profess to believe: that people — whether they be men or women — should be treated equally, non-abusively and with respect.
I don’t know if feminism has got a bad name simply because some feminists tend to be, well, rabid, or if speaking badly of both feminism and feminists is simply how many men have chosen to respond to women who assert themselves.
Personally, I’ve got a lot of really nasty mail from people who simply don’t like what I think because they believe that women should necessarily stay at home, cook, clean and have children. Also, one thing which once got me a little worried is seeing some of these people coordinate with each other online, discuss what they’ve each been saying to people they disapprove of, create formats in which to send mail to such people and encourage each other to mail them. Seeing that happen was the first time I realised what it must be like to be a child and have pedophiles coordinate with each other in reference to one — I’m not equating myself with a child in that position in any way or saying that any of men who’ve mailed me are criminal, I’m only saying that they can be very well-organised and that their organisation can be overwhelming (not to mention intimidating).

Related reading:

[1] Judging a Magazine by its Cover: How Women are Defined : http://mediacrit.wetpaint.com/page/Judging+a+Magazine+by+its+Cover:+How+Women+are+Defined?t=anon[2] What Women Lawyers Really Think of Each Other : http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/what_women_lawyers_really_think_of_each_other/

Slut Alert !?

I have no idea why I’m posting this other than because my jaw quite literally dropped when I read this comment by someone who used a woman’s name (in response to part of another comment which was taken out of context) about a lady in which she (?) said:

“…I mean, I’m like, this is a scandal, like. She’s a total slut. I mean like, she opened her crotch for FIVE DIFFERENT men!!! Hello!! Slut alert people!!! It’s so cool that well meaning people like you and your friend are informing everyone about the true colors of this cow. What a slut! Anyways, I’m off to sip on my latte. See you laters…”

Of all the smug women I’ve come across, I’m quite sure that this one takes the cake.
There are, of course, a number of theories which explain why women are so harsh on each other and most of them have to do with the oppressed becoming oppressors. Somehow, I’m not certain that Freire or anyone else can possibly explain (much less excuse) statements such as this from women who appear to belong to the educated upper-class, sip on latte (as opposed to drinking coffee as lesser mortals do) and like, well, talk like teenagers (although, presumably, they’re not).
As I’ve said earlier, I’ve never completely understood why women are so judgmental towards each other.
I remember once watching a war movie with an acquaintance in which a young woman who initially could not take care of her baby because she was in shock later managed to do so only by going into some sort of emotional paralysis.
The lady who was watching the film with me first condemned her for not taking care of the child and later on, for being too ‘matter-of-fact’ and showing no reaction to the carnage all around her. Both ways, she was deemed to be callous and consequently, worthless.
Her reactions left me stunned and it wasn’t just because they were so harsh; I think it was primarily because no matter what the young woman in the film did, she somehow wound up being in the wrong.
Moving away from reel life into real life, it seems sad to me that we seem to belong to a society where where women are often left accountable for things they have no reason to apologize for even to people who are not normally unkind and who have no intention of being hurtful or being cruel.
Link: http://www.thevoiceinmyhead.com/2008/03/14/so-whos-to-blame-for-what-happened-to-scarlett-keeling/#comment-34040

Why Does She Stay?

The Navhind Times [1] reported that a man named Motiar was sentenced to just eight months in jail for attempting to murder his wife, Tumpa Bibi, ostensibly because she pleaded that he be let off and the court believed that there existed the possibility of their living a happy life together. He had set her on fire and left her with 36% burns just 28 days into their marriage according to the paper.
Personally, I think that every time a woman decides to stay with an abusive man, it’s an example of hope triumphing over experience (though not in the sense Dr. Johnson meant it). In one of the books in the Princess series, Jean Sasson and her anonymous collaborator had said something to the effect of: Once a dog’s let you see its tail crooked, don’t expect it to straighten it out because it won’t. I couldn’t agree more.
In an article by Evan Stark called ‘The Entrapment Enigma‘ [2] in the OUP USA blog, the author said:

“The psychiatric establishment in the 1970s believed women brought abuse on themselves because they were “masculine,” “frigid,” “overemotional” with “weakened ties to reality,” or had “inappropriate sexual expression.” But by the late 1980s, the “myth of masochism” and other transparent accounts that blamed the “wife-beater’s wife” for her abuse had been widely discredited, in no small part because of the work of feminist mental health professionals . Empirical work by psychologists and social workers had demonstrated that battered women had a better sense of reality than their assailants and, compared to nonbattered women, were actually more “social,” more “sympathetic,” less “masculine” though not necessarily more feminine, exhibited greater ego strength, and employed a greater range of strategies to change their situation than nonbattered women in distressed relationships.”

The question which has remained, however, is why battered woman stay in an abusive relationships. In her book ‘Trauma and Recovery’, Judith Lewis Herman wrote, “Prolonged, repeated trauma, by contrast, occurs only in circumstances of captivity. When the victim is free to escape, she will not be abused a second time; repeated trauma occurs only when the victim is a prisoner, unable to flee, and under the control of the perpetrator.”
Being unable to flee, to use the author’s words, I suspect, is a result of four factors:
1. Practical Difficulties
such as being financially dependant on the abuser and having nowhere to live
2. Social Conditioning
such as believing that a woman’s value as an individual is derived from her ability to ‘keep’ a man which is reinforced by living in a societies where women will be looked down on for supposedly failing to do so
3. Personal Beliefs such as those where a woman is unable to believe that she is worthy of being treated with either respect or kindness as a result of having had her self-esteem torn to shreds by being abused
4. Institutional Responses
such as finding it difficult to convince police to file charges against the perpetrator, not having access to shelters, knowing that courts are unlikely to convict the perpetrator.
Knowing that women may have reasons (which seem entirely sensible) for staying in abusive situations though doesn’t stop me from feeling ill every time I hear about a woman who has actually done so.

Links:
[1] http://www.navhindtimes.com/articles.php?Story_ID=031755
[2] http://blog.oup.com/2007/06/violence/

Sex Positive Feminism

I just came across the term Sex Positive Feminism in reference to feminists who say that they are ok with porn and am wondering what in God’s name it’s supposed to mean. That feminists who aren’t ‘sex positive‘ are have something against sex? That being a feminist automatically implies that you’re ’sex negative’ so you have to specifically say that you’re not?
I dislike porn and everything associated with it — the degradation of women, the objectification, the coercion, etc. — and I’m not sure how it’s possible to be enthusiastic about women’s rights but not be anti-porn.

Crime Against Women

Incidentally, I’ve revived the NotJustStatistics blog which I ran till 2006. I’m not entirely certain why since it seems like an exercise in fultility but here it is anyway:

Four Dimensional Vertigo

at http://4dvertigo.wordpress.com/

For those of you who’ve never seen the blog, it primarily contains links to articles which deal with crime against women in India although it focusses on cases which involve Sections 498 A and 304 B of the Indian Penal Code. I try to include the name and the age of the woman involved in each case.I don’t update it very frequently but if you come across a story you’d like to see included, please mail it to me. And if, for some reason, the blog annoys you, please do not mail me. Just to be clear, I don’t want to hear from anyone who belongs to a group that calls itself ‘Saving Indian Family / Society / Husbands / Marriages / Culture’ , ‘Injured Husbands’ , ‘NRI Victims’ or anything else along those lines.While I do realise that the Section i.e. 498 A contains no provision to ensure that women don’t lie, I don’t see that in itself as a reason to do away with the law entirely.

Women’s Day

Today is the International Women’s Day, or so I’m told. Personally, I don’t really see the point of days like this. I don’t see the point of organising lectures which involve smug pseudo-activists promoting themselves. I don’t really know what marches are expected to achieve. And, like Debs, neither am I sure how doing things like making postcards helps much.
This, however, is an idea I love:
“Victims at risk of serious domestic violence are being given alarm pendants that summon police and can record conversations or attacks.”
[Victims can activate the alarm which automatically alerts the monitoring service which in turn informs police comms (communications centre) of the situation. Once the alarm is activated, all sound is recorded by the monitoring service thereby providing potential evidence.]
At least this has the potential difference to make a tangible difference in a woman’s life.
Link: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4430221a10.html

High Heels

I adore high heels. Yes, I know that they’re bad for your legs and that they do nothing good for your back. And I did read the news of a study [1] recently about how they could help keep pelvic floor muscles in shape along with the feminist response to it: who cares if high heels help keep precisely those muscles which men are most interested in in shape at the cost of harming other parts of one’s body? (Incidentally, the study in question was conducted by a woman: Dr Maria Cerruto.)
But despite the fact that I love high heels, the story of a race in Amsterdam with competitors wearing stilettos [2] left me nonplussed. And made me think that Dutch roads must be incredibly well maintained; God knows, I wouldn’t dream of walking on an Indian road in stilettos much less running on one unless I actually wanted to break an ankle (or two).
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7225828.stm
[2] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080307/ap_on_fe_st/odd_stiletto_run

Doctors Assuming Marriage

Kerryn Goldsworthy has a post on her blog entitled ‘Don’t call me Mrs‘. It’s an issue which annoys the life out of me. Her post is primarily about telemarketers etc. getting it wrong but what really bothers me is not so much telemarketers who make assumptions but doctors and nurses who do so.
For example, walk in to for a gynaecological exam. and find that you’re automatically addressed as Mrs. and if you happen to correct whoever’s talking to you, you’ll find that you simply won’t get the tests you need done because it quite simply doesn’t occur to the idiots that one does not need to be married to be in an intimate relationship. And if you do happen to say that you are despite not being married, God help you if you don’t have very thick skin.
I hadn’t realised how annoying it could be till my former doctor in England sent me a letter (followed up by another one six months later) asking me to get some tests done just so that I would have some base figures to check against ones in the future if need be. I quite simply didn’t manage to get the tests done though because every doctor I went to came up with some variation of ‘but we generally don’t do any tests for unmarried girls’. (I still look like a school-child.)
I don’t know if the unwillingness had something to do with virginity or if it was quite simply downright stupidity. Either way, it left me fuming. At one point, I thought of claiming that I was married but, by then, I was so angry that I don’t think I would have been able to pull it off.
Telemarketers, however, have not been too much of a problem for me: almost all such calls are from banks and not one of them has any desire to touch a lawyer, would-be-lawyer or anyone else who is even remotely associated with the legal system with a bargepole.
Links:
[1] http://pavlovblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/dont-call-me-mrs.html

Odd Books ; Are Women Human?

From Reuters comes a list of some odd books [1] including:
1. How to Write a How to Write Book
2. If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs
3. Drawing and Painting the Undead
It was the title ‘Are Women Human?’ which caught my eye. Not being entirely certain whether it was another one of those virulently anti-women books possibly trying to be funny or something else, I went and checked it out on Amazon.com.
As it turns out, it’s a feminist study by Catharine A. MacKinnon whose book ‘Women’s Lives, Men’s Laws‘ I read a while ago and think rather highly of. Ms Magazine has said:
“In this collection of essays, the pioneering feminist lawyer calls for international laws to protect women from the denial of property rights, the deployment of rape in war and other brutalities that flow from male oppression.”
I’m not sure why the book has been listed in a collection of odd books unless it’s supposed to be a list of books with odd titles.
Link:
[1] http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080222/od_nm/books_dc
Addendum:
March 28, 2008
‘If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs’ won this year’s oddest book title competition.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080328/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_britain_book_odd

'Herland'

Debs from The Burning Times writes about Umoja:
“In 1990, Rebecca Lolosoli founded a women-only village in Kenya called Umoja (”unity” in Kiswahili). The village was first established by 15 women, and by 2005 the number of women living there had risen to 48. The village is a refuge for women fleeing their husband’s abuse. The women survive by selling their brightly-coloured bead necklaces to tourists, and this has been so successful that the village has even come under attack from jealous local men.”
It’s an inspiring story.

Links:

[1] Umoja Uaso women group: http://www.jambosafaris.com/umojacharity.htm

[2] Debs’ post: http://burningtimes1645.blogspot.com/2008/02/umoja-women-only-village-in-kenya.html

[3] The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/16/wkenya16.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/16/ixworld.html

The Terror Dream

by Susan Faludi
I've been reading extracts of the book online but I haven't been able to find it in a bookshop. I'd love to read the whole book through: it seems interesting and humourous (though more sarcastic than laugh-out-loud funny).
Reading the extracts reminded me of a conversation I'd had with a friend's mum some time ago where I'd told her that I felt as though over the last few years, the clock has been turned back in terms of women's 'liberation'. Not being an authority on the subject in any sense of the word though, I've rarely voiced the opinion.
It is, however, an opinion which the author of this book seems to share and build upon albeit in a different context: Faludi says that 9/11 revived traditional gender stereotypes.

Sex, Drugs and Bad Journalism

I just came across an article [1] in Mail Today, a joint venture between Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) and the India Today Group, [2] which begins by saying:

"The next time a cocaine addict in Delhi orders for a fix, it’s unlikely that an African man will be standing at the door. Instead, it’ll probably be a young, trendy Northeast Indian girl. And for a few extra thousands, she’ll put sex on offer as well."

The paper may be associated with downmarket journalism but I think that this redefines the term 'dowmarket'. Not to mention that it left me furious: many Indian men seem to associate 'chinky eyes' -- a term which is hardly complimentary in itself -- with the willingness to sleep with anyone, anytime, anywhere, and an article like this does nothing to change that perception.
I could be completely off track but considering that I have quite simply lost count of the number of times I've been approached by men making gestures that are beyond lewd, gestures which friends who look like (and are) propah South Indian Brahmins never have to deal with, there's a part of me that has always suspected that thinking of women from North-East India as sluts has something to do with the fact that a large percentage of women in red light districts are women who've been trafficked into India from Nepal and to the average idiot, if you have chinky eyes, you're available for sex -- it doesn't matter if you've been kidnapped from your home, it doesn't matter if you were lured into a prostitution with the promise of a 'real' job, and it certainly doesn't matter if you have nothing whatsoever to do with the flesh trade.
What really annoys me about this article though is that the way the reporter has told his story is superbly distasteful. I can appreciate the fact that an editor might find a story about how some women from the North East -- and, I have little doubt, women from other places too -- may be being used by drug peddlars newsworthy. But to write the whole story focussing on the superficial, without any credible sources apart from quotes from one officer, and with the abundant use of cheap, sleazy and ill-informed phrases:

• if the customer is willing and has the money, the girl throws in sex as an added offer.


• a few hours of intoxication and intercourse

simply isn't acceptable. Even the one person the author quotes seems to be biased: he asserts that the girls 'are open to the idea of earning extra money' while the pedlars are not only merely 'suspected pedlars' but they also exist 'to lend a helping hand' to North-Eastern women to help them make money. Yeah, right!

Links:
[1] http://mailtoday.in/epapermain.aspx?queryed=9&querypage=4&boxid=275671144&parentid=2129&eddate=01/28/08
[2] http://www.visualeditors.com/tksajeev/2007/11/india-gets-its-own-version-of-the-daily-mail-in-new-joint-venture/

Other bloggers:
[1] http://gauravshrivastava.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/a-generalized-ethnic-perception-poor-ethics/
[2] http://mizohican.blogspot.com/2008/02/chp-163-sex-drugs-and-north-east-girls.html
[3] http://joytonsing.blogspot.com/2008/01/biased-report-on-mail-today.html

Image

Yesterday, I went to a bookshop and read a book called ‘How Fat Do I Look?’ and it made me feel uncomfortable. Not because I have anything against fat people or because I don’t get what the author was trying to say but quite simply because in the rush to make fat people feel ok about their being fat, most authors and various other assorted do-gooders seem to have quite simply forgotten that the need to conform to societal expectations is not limited to fat women. And the women who aren’t fat don’t get half as much attention, or support, for that matter.
Honestly, when was the last time you saw a book entitled ‘It’s OK to be XS and not use make-up?’Or have a body worth showing off and not actually show it off?Or be sensible and not grow your nails so long that you can’t make a fist with your hand?Or wear what you’re comfortable wearing instead of wearing what you look most sexy in?Or that it’s ok to be thin without having a well-toned body?...
Personally, I’m not convinced that there is any such thing as the perfect figure – there are times when I’ve gone into shops with a 22-inch waist and still not been able to find a pair of trousers I can actually pull up over my hips. (And no, I do not have a humungous butt or thunder thighs.) And even assuming that you do happen to have what fashion mags and designers, who presumably get their measurements using mannequins made of match-sticks, consider is an acceptable figure, there’s always something else that you don’t have, be it the right shoes, hair, make-up, nails, skin, eye-lashes... and guess what, that you never will have.
No matter what it is that you do have, it turns out that it’s never enough. It isn’t about being fat and therefore not feeling good enough to exist. It’s about not looking good enough in any number of ways and consequently not feeling good enough to exist, and, even worse, being told that you aren’t.
We spend a mint trying to look like re-incarnations of Venus: apart from continually being told that – thin or fat – we should look a particular way, the yardstick used to define the ideal itself keeps changing – the most obvious way in which this happens is through fashions which never remain the same for more than a season, so to be able to look fashionable – and by extension, acceptable – throughout the year, the average fashion-conscious woman’s expenditure on clothes, shoes and handbags literally rivals the annual budget of a small country. I’m sure it helps the economy but that isn’t the goal, is it?
And then of course, there’s makeup. Take something as supposedly simple as lipstick, for example. It’s not one swipe by a long shot. Lipstick with a cold cream core to keep lips moisturised. Split down the middle: metallic on one side and matte on the other. Gloss, if required. Powder over it. And don’t ever forget that you apparently simply cannot get good looking lips with just one colour. Fancy brush to blend the two colours (if not more). And if that isn’t enough, don’t forget that you apparently need lip-liner too. Otherwise, it’d smudge and seep over the lip-line and look absolutely ghastly (not that it doesn’t sometimes look ghastly anyway – a green core with black glitter?)
It’s not just the fashion industry and the media which promote the image though. Or get sucked into believing in the image, depending on how you see it.
Speaking for myself, I’m petite – read ‘slightly underweight’ – have pimple scars, a plain haircut and little enthusiasm to doll up. I don’t easily get clothes my size – they’re either too small or much too large – have got more advice from well-intentioned friends about what I should wear than I’ve ever wanted, have one who actually takes me shopping for face creams, and have come across more not-so-nice people than I’ve been able to keep count of who’ve made comments about my lack of fashion-sense that I wouldn’t venture to repeat.
And I’m not entirely sure why that’s the case. I’m not saying that I want to make a special effort to look dowdy – all I’m saying is that I don’t want to have to spend a large fraction of my time trying not to look dowdy. And I certainly don’t want to spend a large fraction of my time being told that I do look just that way for the sole reason that I’m not up on all the latest fashions or because I haven’t got a facial done for over a year (make that three, actually)…
Frankly, does it really matter if my skirts are an inch below knee level instead of above it? Or if my sleeves have a bit of a puff on them? Or if the heels of my shoes are shaped just a little differently? Or if my kurtas aren’t tight enough to cause respiratory depression?
I’d like to think that it doesn’t matter. I’m told that it does. Never mind that most of the women I know who do get it right look like they spend so much of their time in getting it right that they have little time for anything else (except, possibly, studying for exams) and the result is that they are so much more style than substance that irrespective of what they wear, they wind up looking like dolled-up scarecrows.
Not that there is anything wrong with looking like a dolled-up scarecrow, I suppose. It just isn’t what I want for myself. And I don’t want to be continually told that not wanting that for myself makes me inadequate in some way, that it makes me a source of continual embarrassment to myself and everyone around me, that I have an obligation to duck and run for cover every single time there’s a camera in the vicinity, that not being dressed up means that I have nothing at all to offer anyone, that looking different involves desexualising myself – although I’ve found that that isn’t always a bad thing.
After all, not being viewed as a sex object makes it easier to hold your own and to avoid being hit on. It’s another matter that I don’t really understand why being treated as an individual is usually closely associated with being non-sexual… are you treated as a person (particularly by men) when you look so awful that they simply can't stand the thought of treating you like a woman, and, as a result, have no choice but to treat you as a non-sexual individual simply by default?
I sometimes wonder if I spend a lot of my time looking like anything but the stereotypical wannabe fashionista simply because, at some level, I want to. Because I don’t particularly enjoy being hit on. Because I enjoy not being treated like a dumb babe. Because I don’t enjoy the competitions which women tend to get into while hunting for a man in which their most potent weapons are stilettos, foundation and concealer. Or perhaps it’s because I’m afraid of just that. Because I don’t know myself well enough to know what I would do or what I’m capable of doing. And because I’d rather not find out.
Either way, one of the very few things which I do know for certain is that I’d like to be able to make my own rules. I don’t want to have anyone tell me what constitutes an acceptable image. How thin or how fat I should be. What I should wear. And how much make-up I should have on.
I’d like to feel comfortable in my own skin. I’d like to be allowed the opportunity to feel comfortable in my own skin.