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The struggle to be taken seriously in the age of subtle sexism"
I identify as female. I am apparently a conventionally attractive student-athlete at UNC-Chapel Hill. I grew into my ears a few years back. I have lighter eyes and darker skin, and with the exception of a bit of an eyebrow discrepancy, my face is generally symmetrical.
Writing this now, I feel my stomach drop. In a culture that regularly exploits sexuality, it’s ironically unacceptable when women openly acknowledge it themselves. But hear me. The following is a string of subtle and routine occurrences that make me feel less human and should take their rightful place among the larger narrative of sexism in contemporary America.
When I wake up at 6 in the morning for practice, I put on spandex that will ride up and allow my legs to chafe. I know this is because I don’t have a thigh gap like most of the distance runners on my cross-country team. I eat an easily-digestible carb and make a note of the calorie count.
After “a good early-morning chafe,” as I call it, I change into dry workout clothes, this time being careful not to wear too much “Carolina gear.” I do this so as not to give my professors and peers another reason to discount me.
I head to a study space. I sit with a classmate – a good friend of mine since freshman year. He identifies as male. Another male-identifying friend approaches. They engage in a “bro dap”: a sort of masculine greeting ritual. The newcomer, my friend, acknowledges me second with a nod of his head: “What’s up, Blake?”
I check my email. My student government group co-director, who identifies as male, has taken it upon himself to send a mass email to our organization and relevant tangential members to schedule a meeting. I am CCed along with four others. They are not co-directors. The body of the email bounces between “I” pronouns to set an agenda for the first meeting of year. It concludes with his signature. The first reply thanks him for “getting this started.”
I go to class. We are discussing Islam in modern society. I chime in. A neighbor, who identifies as male, leans over from across the aisle: “You can’t be pretty and smart.” He thinks he’s giving me a compliment. There is an awkward pause as he waits for me to meekly deny my sexuality. I do not comply. He turns away. I’m not sure he actually listened to anything I said. (read more of that here)
I guess I should be happy I'm not in an expensive school and that I'm a guy?
11 comments:
Many of the Tweet responses, where I picked up this article from, believe it to be a parody.
If it is a parody, it's really well done.
I don't get it, really, the place is loaded with interesting women that work hard even when they don't have to actually work, and show nothing like any of this. And nothing at all that you'd imagine from the advertisements directed at women. Honestly, running through the channels and seeing the advertisements for women you'd imagine them completely involved in their skin hair nails and makeup, and they are to an extent I suppose but the women I meet are nothing at all like this. I was just surrounded with women and none of them are anything at all like this.
All the other women I meet are actually helpful. They're interesting. And they want to do more things together.
They're a lot more fun right off the bat playful even as complete strangers.
I sat on an oversized sofa piled up with oversized square pillows of complex dark regrettable overwrought design that brings the person sitting closer to the front edge of the seat than the back so their legs don't jut straight out as a child sitting in out-scaled furniture. A tall thin woman who I don't know came up from behind me and and said, "Excuse me, please." She reached directly behind my back and removed one of the pillows, her purse, actually, an oversized fabric embroidered square bag with no handles apparent that looked exactly like one of the pillows, I lean back again, the pillow is not there, I throw my arms up and legs out and flail like a cartoon falling through space, I'm just so funny as that sometimes, everyone laughs, she grabs my stiff twirling arm and rescues me pulling my whole body forward. Contact. Just like that. In a very playful way. I don't need rescuing. I have very strong abs. I don't hear a complaining peep out of any of the ladies, rather, they keep thinking of things we can do together. They're always FULL of ideas of things for me to do with them and for them and involvement with other people and groups. It can wear you right out.
You know, Lem, honestly, I don't know where the Right comes up with all these examples. They must be outlying cases. I just don't see them characterizing things. The young women I saw Friday, the daughters of the women I know are just beautiful. Mixed race, privileged, talented, hard working, interested in things, pursuing their personal interests like cooking and baking gardening, interesting to talk with, at very early ages.
And the young women immediately around me are too sensible too hard working, too in pursuit of their own interests for any of this.
At Red Rocks I passed two women hiking. I stopped and we discussed the astonishing beauty around us. We were on a difficult slope, "This is where your sensible shoes really pay off." They split themselves laughing, no guy ever says that but it's something women think about. Guys just go. Women think, what shoes should I wear?
And the bird with the impossibly preternaturally incandescent teeth of the sort not seen in nature and too young and gorgeous to have false teeth, I have no idea who she is, "Wow, your teeth are really white." And they are, "Thank you." She acknowledges sweetly. "And that Fixodent really holds 'em in there too."
Usually when you see photographs of these individuals doing the complaining being picked up by conservative news sources and blogs and Academialand discussions, the image speaks loudly as words. Peeling back the very first layer shows disturbance that sends you off in the other direction. Any other direction. Peeling further gets worse. And worse. And worse. Such as Yiannopoulos on Brietbart is exposing with gamer gate personalities. Look at their pictures of themselves. They tell the whole story. And such as Robert McCain exposing the personalities behind feminism. The further he delves the deeper the madness, the more layers he peels back the worse the personality disorder that shows. In every single case.
So the natural impulse is run away. In any opposite direction. Any at all.
And there you find sensible women blowing your mind doing sensible things, seeing your talents and pulling you in. That is my experience, and not anything like this, except for my little sister, and like I said, she is the original twisted sister but she and her like are minority and a matter for psychologists.
You know, Lem, honestly, I don't know where the Right comes up with all these examples.
Me neither. That's why I'm acknowledging it could be a parody.
Sonia Sotomayor, on the other hand, is not a parody, but she sure sounds like one.
On the day her nomination was announced, she said, “I felt like my spirit had left my body … I was looking at myself from up there … I couldn’t connect with my emotions and I knew, ultimately, that the reason for that was if I did, I wouldn’t be able to do what I needed to do: to give a speech. I thought that feeling would end that day, but it lasted for about a year and a half.” Later in the same appearance, Anne Thompson of NBC News, who was sharing the stage, asked Sotomayor bluntly if she now believed she “belonged” on the court. Her response—a flat “no”—(you can watch it here) elicited some gasps.
The difference between her and Cruz (and Rubio) is that they assimilated while Sonia resists American exceptionalism.
Oh, here is the link to Sonia's tale of woe.
You can go mad worrying about what others think of you.
Liberation comes with the understanding that they barely think of you at all.
That's what I'd tell this gal.
That whole "spirit leaving her body" thing was Sonia experiencing the incompatibility of what she learned via higher education and believed and what was in front of her.
A cognitive dissonance experience.
I think she needs to self identify as a pompous asshole.
Sonia imagined herself as if living the life of soviet dissident. who after spending years in a gulag, is all of a sudden freed and asked to join the politburo with all the perks and privileges.
Do i still hate these people who 'mistreated' me?
Only difference being that the gulag in Sonia's mind is probably worst than the real thing.
Ergo, the reason why she STILL believes she "doesn't belong".
I notice, in the face of all that sexism, she puts on a lot of makeup.
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