BACKsLASH - How Gender Keeps Us Fighting Ourselves And Why Blogs Are Weapons of Mass Destruction

I've been ever so slowly approaching the status of blog addict. There are several that I check for updates multiple times a day and I get way too much of a buzz when a new post is up. I read crafty blogs, mummy blogs, Christian blogs, blogs that post pictures of animals that look like they've had a hard day's night, endlessly refreshing pages for memes (NB: Portal is the new Lolcat – and I don’t really know what that means either) and keeping up to date on Disney's campaign for global domination. I love reading new things; a bit of mindless trash, a few anecdotes and an opinion piece a day keeps me very happy.

Until I discovered a particular post about women and how they view themselves.

Not unusual, really, in my blogging history. Back in the day, before Livejournal became a joke about teen angst (sure there was a before, shut up) I used to post entries constantly. A great majority of my friends list were female and many very intelligent and opinionated about their gender. Most texts I wrote or read were about women, by women, for women, all rounded off with an icon of Meryl Streep at a red carpet event or Amanda Tapping in an impressively tight outfit (or vice versa, come to think of it). I wouldn't have minded a little more diversity within that sphere but the few guys I chatted with were straight and very supportive of the feminine. Which is a lovely thing.

But something's changed. Or maybe my eyes are a little more open. Because when I read this piece last week, I couldn't believe what was in front of me.

In a post entitled Take Up Space, on the blog for children’s apparel brand Pigtail Pals, CEO Melissa Wardy objects to a billboard put up before Valentine’s Day. It shows a selection of chocolates with the words “I’ll love you no matter how fat you get.” stencilled over the top. It’s pretty easy to see where she’s coming from, right? And pretty much the entire post can be summarised in a couple of lines by the lady herself –

"We give our power away when we allow others to tell us how to feel about our bodies. OUR bodies. Our freaking amazing, sexy, curvy, soft, creative, nice smelling, intelligent, nurturing, life giving bodies.”

It gives out a positive enough message, I guess - women are brilliant. Very true. Women are fairly wonderful, taken collectively. If that's what we're doing. I'm a huge fan of women, I have all their records. I’m not arguing this point in general. It was the other, highly liminal message I read that made my blood boil. This quote preceeded most of the post and set the tone for everything that followed.

“We’re the beautiful half of the species. For God’s sake, our male counterparts are bald or balding, grow hair in their ears, out their noses, on their shoulders, asses, bellies and backs, they’re smelly, beer bellied and have sweaty, stinky balls hanging off their ape-like bodies. And they feel F*$%@^& GREAT about themselves. That just doesn’t add up.”
 - Tracee Sioux (journalist, writer and editor, amongst many other things, says her blog)

Women are beautiful and men aren't. Women are naturally sexy and men aren't. Therefore women have more worth than men. Because they are, comparatively, pretty nice to look at.

I'm sorry... what?

I just... WHAT?

The hypocrisy is enough to make me scream. Look, I think all women should receive positive messages about themselves throughout their life. As part of that group, I can't really help feeling supportive. There's a little person in my chest, jumping up and down with ♀ symbols painted on her cheeks, and a big smile on her face, that really wants to spread that love for a part of who I am.

But giving out the message that women are special and beautiful and worthy because men are not? I will not stand for that. Especially when we’ve been fighting for centuries not to be treated as pretty dolls with mouths painted closed.

Here's my little Theory of Everything. Ever since I was a child, I’ve had trouble differentiating. I've been told off a hundred times for not being good at finding things I'd lost in my schoolbag or my room, I still have to check my right and left on my hands and I never really got why it was so important that someone was a boy or a girl. I'm still great at losing things, bad at finding them, I pause to work out which way someone means when they're giving me directions and although I've mostly accepted that there's a big emphasis on gender in our world, I still don't really worry which way someone goes to pee.

If we work with an idea of some kind of unity of being, an interconnectedness that not only includes everything but IS everything, which seems to be the outline of the vague ‘spirituality’ we all admit to over organised religion, does it really matter if I'm a guy or a girl? Well, yeah. This is where it gets complicated. Of course it matters. Definitely. On some level, it matters very deeply. You wouldn't be the person you are in this world, the manifestation of your unique concept, without your gender.

But am I wholly defined by my breasts? If I didn't have the potential to give birth, what would that mean? And what exactly is a woman?

There have got to be thousands of definitions, millions, that would be completely personal to each individual. But how do we actually define a thing? We describe it. We list its features, its functions, its context. We categorise. We box down. What makes a box a box? Is it the cardboard? Or is it the fact that it separates the air inside from the air outside?

We define something by what it is and, consequently, by what it isn't. Which is something we don't put under the microscope too often. It's an easy process of ours and, like any kind of communication, it's a feature of relativity. It is, therefore, flawed. It needs to be, in this world. But tell me, what sounds right to you?

- You are yourself because you are you.

- You are yourself because you are not the person next to you.

Women are not sexy because men are not. Women are not intelligent because men are not. Women are not beautiful because men are not. These double negatives should be a clue.

Women are because they are,

and

Men are because they are.

I don't believe in creating a sense of self upon the denouncement of others. And I don’t believe in this over zealous neo-feminist crap that not only implies, but says outright, that women are better than men. I mean, you wouldn’t say Einstein wasn’t a genius or Johnny Depp isn’t beautiful because they’re men, would you? No, that’s ridiculous. And it would bely the statement that women have a superior intelligence if you did think so (allowing for subjective opinions on Mr Depp’s attractiveness, of course).

Somewhere along a road that was long and hard, where many amazing people (and yes, largely women) fought for their rights as members of society, we forgot what the word ‘equality’ means. Equal. Once, we marched for the same pay, the same respect, the same rights as men. But now, when those matters are still not resolved, we’re looking for more than that. We’ve forgotten about equality and are firmly preaching superiority.

I’m lucky, because I was born after many of the big fights for the feminist movement. When and where I came into existence, I already had the right to vote when I turned 18, to pay that’s either equal or a lot closer to equal than it was, to live in a place that (outwardly, at least) wouldn’t tolerate blatant sexism. But the downside is that now, the degradation of women is more insidious. Advertising, media, celebrities – all telling us that beauty and worth fits into a stick figure slot that few can squeeze into.

But that does not give us license to react with dismissive and bullying attitudes that are frankly reminiscent of the patriarchy which we have fought so hard against. Saying you’re superior because you can give birth is just as bad as thinking you’re better because you have a penis. Worse, even, because we know what it feels like to be belittled and mistreated. I’m going to go out on a limb here and tell you that it puts me in mind of the Israel/Palestine situation. A people who have been degraded, abused and killed oust another people from their home, putting them squarely in the same position. That is not a simple situation. It has history and strong emotions and a hundred complexities. The same as our self imposed battle of the sexes.

If there’s to be any kind of reconciliation between men and women on this issue, we’re going to have to let a few things go. We can learn from history but if we let it define who we are to the exclusion of all else, how can we grow? How can we expect anything to change if we repeat and repeat this cycle of intolerance and one upmanship? I don’t know the answer to this, as I couldn’t tell you how to solve the conflict surrounding Israel, but I know a good place to start. We’re all here trying to figure out what life is and do the best we can to know ourselves, the least we can do is respect each other as human beings, not walking billboards of labels, misconceptions and prejudice.

Think about what you write, think about the message you’re really sending the next generation of men and women, because while we may not have started this, we’re responsible for ending it.

To close with the final lines of Ms Wardy’s post -

“C’mon Ladies. Let’s face it. We’re the beautiful ones. We make the rules.”

How’s that attitude been working out for you so far, sister?