Sitting on a tram this morning, I was wearing a short dress and thick tights. You know when your stop is nearing and you get ready to quickly stand up and get out? At this stage I caught myself thinking whether there were any sharp angles on the metal seat that could potentially ruin my tights. And then I asked myself - do men find themselves in this situation? What about other hassles that not-entirely-comfortable clothing leads to? Shoulder bags that always threaten to slide off your shoulder, high-heels that slow you down or make-up that prevents from enjoying the rain? I'm not sure about the shoulder bag situation, but others are only lived through by women.
In Sweden, men ride bikes in expensive suits and women ride bikes in high-heels. Because why not?
Getthing back to the topic though, whilst on my stay in Newcastle, England, I wrote a paper on how clothing is meant to restrict women. I stumbled upon that topic barely out of curiosity. I was in the library and I randomly opened a random book that happened to be about gender performativity. And it definitely drew me in. I read plenty of book chapters and articles on it. I read way more than my paper demanded.
And now I see it. Women are unconsciously restricting themselves every day with their clothing. I sat there on a tram this morning thinking about my tights, and that girl stood under a roof in pouring rain the ofher day for half an hour to save her makeup. Yes, my tights are alright, but maybe that girl got a cold afterwards? Again, I'm going back at the #LikeAGirl campaign I mentioned in "Beautiful as we are (II)" - yes, a woman can be physically powerful and open jars in the kitchen herself. She just doesn't know it most of the time.
This post has been in my blog as a draft for nearly five months by now, and there are so many things unsaid that I don't really know how to say. A few days ago I came across an article that did what I seemingly cannot. It viewed gender inequality in the job market objectively.
I don't have many front-row experiences of when a woman was denied a high position because of her appearance. However, I have minor stories, and I believe that they plant the very same seed in young and perspective women that grows to prevent them from high positions in their fields of expertise.
Compliments, when spoken out, have to be differentiated. Not all of them seek to flatter.
"What do you know about struggles for recognition, you are pretty and it's way easier for you" - I have been addressed one of these as well.
"I will shed all of this skin down to the very bone beneath it if that's what it will take for you to come to the realization that appearance is not what makes a human beautiful" - this quote basically says all I think of it better than I ever could put it in my own words (I've posted it in one of my older blog posts).
Beauty is a 'given' and intelligence is an 'achieved'. Why is it so hard for some people to see the distinction?
Self-confidence is not a 'given' as well, and not only the 'ugly' ones lack it. Many girls stay in lower positions, never daring to think of having more power and, instead, leaving it either to the 'hungry for power' women (in their opinion) or men. They keep all their ideas in and stay in low positions with their mouths shut.
A lot of damage has been done for the physically beautiful, but I won't blame men. Some things are done just because things 'have always been like this'. We all do it - through advertising, media, movies. Music videos are not even worth mentioning in this case, I guess - some of them are the perfect demonstration of beautiful women doing silly things and exposing themselves to be recognised. We need to make them realize - everybody has the equal and basic right to...be intelligent. There's just no other way to say it, really.
Here's a video from #LikeAGirl campaign that majorly inspired me to get back to this post:
The situation is starting to get better with Emma Watson and other famous women speaking out about gender inequality, but the change is slow and will take a lot of time to spread worldwide.
This post has been here as an empty draft with only a name on it for exactly one month and one day. Everybody starts with a blank page, but I don't usually struggle with it as much as I did this time, not sure if it's because I have too much to say and I don't know where to start, or because I'm just afraid of being misunderstood, my words and thoughts being misinterpreted or thought of as egoistic and narcissistic.
I'm pretty sure I'll write more on this topic because I have way too many thoughts on presently existent perceptions of beauty and I don't want to make my posts too chunky and overloaded. I know - I'll make a series of posts on it :)
So, to start off, a few days ago, a friend of mine recommended a book called "1984" by George Orwell, which I will definitely read. From what she told me, it's about how societies can become dull only by narrowing down people's vocabularies and making them use basic words. As I think of it, it hits me just how true it may be.
The course I took on my Erasmus exchange this semester really got me thinking about so many cultural and social aspects of my life and my environment, and I think I might have found the connection between the ideas in "1984" and what I heard from my lecturers throughout the course- endless streams of academic vocabulary. Every time a simple word could be substituted for something more scholarly and professional - it was. It is shocking how much my own vocabulary has grown and how critically I started to see things since I started it in January, 16 weeks ago.
Even though I will be writing my own thoughts, mainly based on what I have read when I was searching for quotes to use in my exam papers, I feel like I need a disclaimer here: I do not intend to be egoistic or, worse, narcissistic. I have been told numerous times that I am physically beautiful, and it's not an achievement that I intend to brag about. And yes, technically, from the global point of view, I have, in fact, an "ideal body "- pale white skin, blonde hair, blue eyes, tall, long legs and all this shit that makes people think I am beautiful and assume I'm not smart at all, sadly. That is purely a social and cultural thing about which I intend to talk in my "Beautiful as we are" series. Here we go :)
