“Women are irrational, that’s all there is to that. Their heads are full of cotton, hay and rags. They’re nothing but exasperating, irritating, vacillating, calculating, agitating, maddening, and infuriating hags!”
Professor Henry Higgins in Lerner and Lowe’s “My Fair Lady”
For a long time, I couldn’t agree more.
And we all know that Eve was a trouble maker.
I didn’t even consciously realize until quite recently that I felt so strongly this way. Even more surprising was that I seemed to absorb this message but completely failed to grasp that in the end of the story, Professor Higgins had fallen in love with the woman he had “created” and that was the key to the whole Pygmalion tale!
I was predisposed to the view of women that Higgins held, when I heard it coming from him, the intellectual in the story, I immediately agreed. That stuck with me.[lj-cut]
While growing up, I was exposed to a number of intelligent, powerful men who were successful and had meaningful discussions that I could relate to. The women in my life were friends of my mother’s, who were generally less-educated, enjoying soap operas, shoes and gossip. The women on TV and in movies were nice to look at, but very few had brains.
I resented my whole gender for this divide. I loathed the times when I was forced to be with women rather than going to do the fun, smart stuff with men.
I had a tendency to focus on the virtues of men and shortcomings of women. Certainly there were lousy men and great women, but I wasn’t seeing them.
I lacked healthy female role models.
I wasn’t a total tomboy (obviously I enjoyed a musical here and there), but for a long time I automatically avoided things I felt were “too girly.” I never let a “bitchy mood” outside, those feelings were pushed down and absorbed. I wasn’t going to be just another moody, manipulative woman. I was always going to be rational (just like men are? HAH!).
When and how did this view start to shift? There were a few factors involved.
Self esteem. Once I was able to love myself I was able to throw off what others thought, including what they thought about how girly I am. Part of being me is being a woman, there is no denying this. It’s ok to like pink and want to feel pretty. Amusingly, the progression of my website design from dark and impersonal to bright and personal shows the transformation.
Gaining more female role models and friends. LinuxChix played a huge role in this. Not only was I able to find women to look up to, I found many female friends who shared my interests. Over the past few years I’ve been able to bask in this community and sometimes even forget that it’s not the norm. We love Belgian Ales! We compile our own kernels! We love books!
Emotional growth. There came a point where depression and lousy relationships had taken control of my life. When I turned 20 I vowed to break this cycle. Part of this meant I needed to start expressing my feelings and standing up for myself. So what if I get into a grumpy mood? Everyone gets in grumpy moods. Pushing them down might make those around me marginally happier, but it was destroying me. For me to be healthy I need to express those feelings and TELL people when they hurt me rather than absorbing it all until I get to the point of breakdown.
Spiritual growth. This is a recent development, but is helping me reshape the ideas of women I gained from growing up in patriarchal society. Eve’s “sin” was just part of the story, and where would we be without her release of knowledge? In spirituality of many Native Americans women are very spiritually powerful. The earth we stand on is a Mother. In the religion of my ancient ancestors the Goddess ruled equally with the God. Even Christianity itself has women who are powerful, but there seems to have been a movement to gloss over this fact.
Today I’m quite proud to be the woman I am, and while I still don’t have a clue about makeup application, I’m able to express myself in a feminine way without feeling ashamed. I don’t have to pretend to be some idealized version of a man to succeed.
This path has taught me a lot. There is still a divide in our society and I’m constantly reminded that there are a lot of people out there that don’t believe it exists anymore.
I don’t want to say that there is no “solution” to this divide, because it’d be nice to live in a world where it didn’t exist, and there has been much progress in the past century. But the problems I encountered with my entire world view can’t be fixed with some affirmative action or feminism.[/lj-cut]