Tag Archives: feminism

September 10, 2013

Ugly is a Matter of Perspective

By So Here's Us.... life on the raggedy edge.

The downside to 11-year-old slumber parties is clear – a very big mess, very little sleep and the very real danger of permanent hearing damage. If you have not experienced the extraordinary pitch and volume of excited pre-teen babble… well then, I’m happy for you.

On the upside, it’s a fascinating peek into the mind of children-becoming-women. I mostly hung out in the background at my daughter’s first sleepover party, as per her strict instructions. And if I happened to lurk in the hallway listening from time to time, who’s to know? After all, it is my house.

It’s a lot like I remember. A lot more OMG and iPod usage than I’d like, but the silliness and the shrieking and the inhuman levels of energy ring a bell. The enthusiasm of childhood intersecting with the concerns of growing up.

The birthday girl wanted a “fancy dinner,” so she and all her guests dressed up, then big sister played waitress and Mom played chef and somehow everyone got fed. There were candles and flowers and the good china and the good white tablecloth. It’s possible that more food ended up in the “wine” glasses than in their stomachs, but they weren’t complaining.

After cheesy party games, presents, a movie, pranking poor big sister and several hours of whispering (until Mean Mom made an appearance at 2:30 am), they managed to get a few hours of REM in.

Enough, apparently, that the next morning they found a few minutes to wax philosophical. They even asked me to weigh in on the conversation. I think the question had originally been asked in jest, but the discussion seemed pretty serious for pajama clad partiers.

If you had to choose,
one or the other for the rest of your life,
would you rather be pretty or smart?

On the surface, it’s a simple conversation starter. Like, what kind of superpower would you choose? Or where would you go if you could go anywhere in the world? Fluffy and unimportant. But in this day and age, for a group of young women just discovering who they are, it’s a serious question.

What’s most important to you? Who do you want to be? Why?

Of course, this is a rhetorical argument – we don’t have to choose, though it may seem like it sometimes (but that’s a blog for another day). And on some level, our physical appearance and natural intelligence is not within our control. We are who we are. Accepting that is the first step to contentment. Still, we can nurture and enhance both our mind and our look. With limited resources, we tend to focus more on one or the other.

Our priorities and values, especially as women, can be largely determined by our devotion to either appearance or substance. It affects how we see ourselves and others. It affects our goals and our dreams and our sense of purpose. It affects how we spend our time and our money and our lives.

I gave the girls the “Mom Answer” they expected. Of course, I’d rather be smart. That’s what I was supposed to say.

Afterwards I wondered… is it really true? I mean, I definitely want to be pretty. I’d love to have movie-star good looks and wear size 2 and fend off drooling hoards of admirers. Who wouldn’t?

But would I trade the power of my mind, the things I know and have experienced, my connection with God, my common sense, and my hard-won slivers of wisdom for that? Even just a little bit?

Never. Not for all the pretty in the world. I wouldn’t lessen myself that way.

Yet, women do that all the time. We live in a world that tells girls, in thousands of different ways, that their value lies in how they look and what they weigh and how well they can attract a man. Sometimes we even slap a “feminist” label on it and call that power. But real power isn’t being noticed or shaking your ass – real power is being confident, unique and strong in a way that is MORE than skin deep. The world doesn’t need more pretty women, it needs more smart ones.

Without time to prepare, I didn’t offer the eloquent, inspiring comments I would’ve liked. I said something about looks being temporary. That I need intelligence to understand and enjoy the world. That I want to do something good and important and make the world a better place, not just decorate it.

One little girl looked at me, then said, quite sadly,

“But then you’d be ugly.”

There was a pause then, before other conversations intruded and crepes wanted flipping and sleeping bags needed folding and the party carried on.

I carried that sad comment with me all day. And I wondered about the nature of ugly, about the world we live in and the world we’re making.

If a girl chooses smart. If she chooses substance. Could that, ever, be ugly?

So here’s my answer girls: don’t pick pretty. Pick smart. Even better, pick kind or brave or outstanding. Because there’s nothing uglier than a pretty face with nothing behind it.

12 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in parenting

May 7, 2012

Smurfette the Superhero

By So Here's Us.... life on the raggedy edge.

First of all, I loved the movie! The Avengers is delicious sci-fi candy for a dork like me. As always, Joss Whedon delivers.

I especially liked Scarlett Johansen’s character “Black Widow”. She is tough and smart and she saves the day just as often as her male counterparts. I walked out of the movie excited that they had included a female superhero in the line up – a very rare thing.

By the time I reached my car, I was annoyed at myself, for being so pathetically grateful to be represented at all. The sixth movie in this series and the first one with a female hero, well, one of six heroes anyway.

I had been explaining the “Smurfette Principle” to my daughters just last week. Essentially, it describes the tendency in media to assemble a cast of male characters with one token female, usually the love interest or sexy sidekick.

If outsiders were to look to Hollywood to understand our society, they would be unlikely to believe that women make up MORE than 50% of the population. That’s right men, we outnumber you. But a trip to the theatre does not reflect that.

I recently heard about something called the Bechdel test. In order to pass, a movie must have:

  • 2 female characters
  • with names
  • who speak to each other for at least 30 seconds
  • about something other than a man

Honestly, this is not asking much; half a minute of dialogue in an entire movie. Hardly the framework for a raging feminist flick. But the puny number of movies which actually pass this will BLOW YOUR MIND!

It doesn’t mean much in and of itself; it doesn’t measure whether it is a good movie, or even respectful of women. But it does make you think about the representation of women in media.

In movie world, it seems that women’s lives often revolve entirely around men. We exist only as the prize; the prop for smarter, more interesting and more important characters. You know, the men.

They say media reflects real life, but it also influences it. I fear that all of us, men and women, may come to believe that it is true.

That women play the bit parts in life. That we aren’t crucial to the plot. That we are merely decorative. That the size of our boobs (or our size, period) and not the strength of our intellect is what matters most. That how we look is more important than what we have to say.

I don’t think women need to butch it up and take over the “world of men”. More women playing soldiers and assassins and action heroes is missing the point. We shouldn’t need to act macho to be the protagonists for a change.

We are daughters, and sisters, and wives, and mothers. We are friends, and co-workers, and artists, and thinkers. We are interesting. We are smart. We are funny. We are not scenery. And our stories matter too.

So here’s me, and this is my feminist rant for the day. In case you were wondering, more than 50% of movies fail the Bechdel test.

What is the last movie you saw? Does it pass the test? The answer may surprise you.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in media

%d bloggers like this: