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To all women out there

I saw this opinion piece on October 7th Daily Toreador (FYI: Texas Tech Daily Campus Newspaper) and I thought I should share this with all the female out there.


Her breasts were huge. I'm not talking about the kind that you see bouncing down the runways of Milan and New York. I mean the porn-sized breasts that look like they might make a morning jog impossible for the poor girl, unless she wore about three sports bras and a back brace.
Every male eye in the restaurant had the same wild look of admiration. I hated her immediately. I reassured myself and my Mary Kate and Ashley training bra that she looked like a Popsicle stick with two melons fastened to it. Yes, I was disgusted.

After careful consideration, however, I found that I was really disgusted with myself. Me, an avid feminist, denouncing a woman for having breasts? For millions of women such as myself, the fascination with the perfect exterior, or lack there of, infects our lives like a virus.

From birth, the idea that appearance means everything is drilled into young girls' heads. Before we even leave the cradle, little girls know only frilly pink dresses, Barbies, and Easy-Bake ovens.

We are taught that being lady-like supersedes the importance of individuality, candidness and self-esteem (not to mention proficiency in math and science). Before puberty hits, pre-adolescents start getting highlights and experimenting with the wonderful world of lip-gloss and eye shadow.

By the time high school rolls around, girls have learned to fear and hate each other. If one girl is exceptionally attractive, the other girls shun her as if she were a mass murderer. This competition reaches a climax during college, at which point girls jockey for that special guy's attention so as not to be an old maid at the tender age of 25.

After all, what would life be worth without a husband? Every girl has felt an insecurity leaking in with male friends and boyfriends. The pressure to be thin, beautiful and feminine can drive a woman to extreme and dangerous measures.

The real danger, the real tragedy, however, is the loss of sisterhood. Instead of camaraderie that could unite women everywhere, we have divided ourselves into failure. Sorority sister against sorority sister, co-worker against co-worker, friend against friend - women are falling prey to the idea that we are all manipulative, gossipy, man-stealing sluts.

The question is, why don't men perceive each other this way?

How many times have you heard a male pouting in the corner because he wasn't skinny or tan enough and no woman will ever want him? Of course men do not operate this way because the whole world is designed for women to compete for male attention - they needn't compete for ours.

The patriarchal society in which we live functions on the basis that the men simply must focus on getting money and success, while the women must focus on appearance and looking better than other women. Therefore men compete in a meritocracy.

They succeed based on the things that they do - where they graduate college, what job they take, etc. Women are confined underneath a glass ceiling, competing based on what we are - how we look, how we dress and how many men find us desirable.

Because of this, women will always be unequal in all areas of society from the workplace to the government. We will never gain complete equality if we keep on fighting each other over the most meaningless and inane reasons.

Therefore, as women we must do several things to insure our advancement. First, we must base our confidence in areas other than our desirability to our male counterparts. If we extricate ourselves from the burden of male attention, a world without boundaries could be opened to women.

Regardless of how many men want us, we should take pride in our intellect, compassion, sense of humor and personality.

Secondly, we must embrace and love every woman. From Hillary Clinton to Anna Kournikova, every woman with something to offer should not inspire jealousy and hatred, but rather admiration.

Though society has programmed us to scorn standout women, we should learn from their attributes and use them to edify our gender.

Finally, we must embrace "male" characteristics. Do not deny intellect, outspokenness, leadership or power for fear of being labeled a bitch. The first step to equality is casting off the antiquated expectation of humble submissiveness and claiming our rightful place as contemporaries.

The time has come for women to fight against lower wages for equal work, glass ceilings, minority status in the government and the image of sexual plaything with nothing to offer past breasts and a vagina. If the current division among women continues, however, this fight will die in the beginning stages.

If we want to give our daughters a more equal chance in the world they will live in, we must realize that the most important asset women possess is one another.

posted by Trouble @ 9:37 AM