A Question of "Girl"

Source: https://www.pexels.com/search/girl/

 Often times in our culture women are referred to as "girls". In documentaries about Playboy, for instances, the ladies who posed for the magazine or worked for the club are called "girls". They are legally adult women, but they are still called "girls". A group of women - almost regardless of their age - are often addressed as "girls", particularly if they are pretty.

In some online communities, also, women belonging to it are called girls, such as "planner girl", "bookish girl" and so on. Female power are also called "girl power", and there are a lot of expressions that describe perceived female capabilities (or lack of them) that make use of the word "girl" even when they are understood as expanded to all cisgender women. Here I think of things like "girl math" or "fighting like a girl". Yes, these are demeaning and stupidifying women (last time I checked maths had no gender and the hability of people to use them does not depend on their gender), but that's not my point right now.

One time I was at an online group chat and a lady made mention of something that "every girl needs". I was the youngest of the group (not of the females, but of the whole group) and I'm 48 years old. I felt odd because I'm not a girl and I haven't been a girl for... 36 years? I've lived more years being a woman than the years I lived being a girl, and all the other people who identify as a female were pretty much in the same situation.

At another time, in a podcast, I heard the two podcasters mention that they prefer to be referred to as girls, because "woman" is such a horrible-sounding word, and "girl" is much more nice. But why is that? What do people think of when they think of "a girl"?

Based on the references from media and social networks, online materials and conversations, girls are both young, female children as well as young women. Girls are pretty, innocent, playful but also sexualized. Women are coarser, antagonistic or broken into submission and possibly sexually savvy or frigid, boring. Girls are desirable, women are not so much. Girls are still youthful why women are not. Girls are fun, women complain.

The way we use language and the way language is being used makes "girl" to be the desirable word to be called, and "woman" becomes a label you do well to avoid. But to be called "girl" you must be a girl, or at least act like one and look like one: happy, pretty, fun... and dumb. Girls are not threatening, girls can be tricked. Girls can be manipulated, gaslit. Women would fight back, hard. The label "girl" takes power away from a female human. It diminishes her and make her complains a joke. And at the same time, it's sold as "girl" being a word of "care and tenderness". You are a girl, so I'll take care of you.

Would it be the same if we started calling men "boys"? What would happen if we made the word "boy" desirable and we would call pretty men "boys" and build up a social image that boys are nice, pretty, fun and innocent, while men are annoying, complaining and old (and thus, ugly)? What would happen if we laughed at a man that gets a calculation wrong and say "oh, it's boy math!".

I find the use of "girl" troublesome for the pushing of women into place where they are expected to be just-pretty-not-smart, and always deferential to others, accepting that they are lesser, always afraid of aging, and aging out of the "girl" label, but also because by mixing adult women into the "girl" name, actual girls become part of the same group and those open to be sexualized. Men stop being called "boy" clearly when their childhood ends, but women flow and remain in girlhood for years on end.

I personally don't like even being referred to as a "woman", and I prefer being seen as a person and referred to as a person, but if the situation or the conversation is so that my gender needs to be mentioned, then I am a woman.

I wonder how other people feel about this.

I'm Not My Gender!

St. Patrick's Day, one of my favorite holidays, even if it's not a holiday observed here. Well, my favorite holiday of all is Halloween, and that's not observed here either, but that has never stopped me, has it? I'd be delighted to write to you about St. Patrick's Day and how much I love it, and how I like to prepare for it (except that this year I realized only after I was in the car, on the way to the office, clad all in maroon, not in green. I did change later on to green, so not all was lost!), but what drives me to the keyboard of my netbook is something else entirely. Today I felt insulted by a sexist comment.

It all happened during lunch time. At the office we have a microwave for our area, in which all of us heat our food, and then proceed to go wherever we choose to go to eat. I normally don't eat with my coworkers because when I eat with someone is a friend of mine from days past, and when I'm not, I take the opportunity to have some moments with a book. I'm currently reading "Chesapeake 1880", which has great parts and others rather poorly done. Anyway, as sometimes happen, when I went to heat my meal someone's meal was already in the microwave. No biggie, I put my food in the queue and then went to the bathroom, expecting for the microwave to be free when I was done. Indeed the program had ended when I came back, but the owner of the food contained had not removed the food. I opened the oven to remove it and place it on top of the microwave, but the damned thing was too hot to hold. I did try but it was too hot and I knew I wouldn't be able to touch it. So I asked who the owner of the container was, so that person would remove the scalding container. The owner wasn't far from there - could have actually removed the container in time, since he was in distance to hear the beep.

"Here," he said handing me some paper napkins "take it out."

"No," I said moving out of the way "it's too hot for me to touch."

And here comes The Comment. My coworker actually said: "Too hot? You are a woman! You should be used to! I bet your mother-"

I didn't let him continue.

"I'm a person like anyone else, and I resist heat just like any other person."

"You are a woman," he insisted "what kind of woman are you? Sure your mother could handle that!" (He has never seen my mother, nor has ever heard of her, mind you.)

Honestly, I found the comment insulting, the sheer idea that just because I'm a woman I should be trained for the kitchen, unlike my male counterparts, who need not to deal with any kitchen task, nor need to be trained to endure heat on the hands. I did tell him that his comment was sexist and I found it insulting, with those words, the words "sexist" and "insulting" included in the message, and he simply insisted, as if he were right in his assertion and my being insulted were nothing but some stupid words from an ignorant woman who forgets where is her place in society. I deigned him not to any more of my attention.

Now, I'd like to make something clear: I'm not being picky or delicate, my not being fighty or radical-feminist, I'm being honest, and I am entitled to feel insulted when someone thinks that just because I happen to have been born female I'm less or different by default from my male counterparts regarding anything other than my particular function in the reproductive scheme. First and foremost, I'm a person. The 4% of my chromosomes do not define me entirely. The fact that - reproductively speaking, I'm a "life carrier" instead of a "life impregnator" do not define me. I'm a person, a mind, a soul a spirit, and my body, its shape, its form, its age, its gender are but the vessel my mind uses to move around the world. Yes, quite a great vessel, which I love, and comes with a lot of perks, like senses and sensations and all sorts of things to experiment with, but neither of those qualities are what makes me, me. I'm not automatically happier because I'm a brunet, I'm not automatically a sharp shooter because my eyes are dark. I'm not smarter because I'm not too tall, I'm not automatically temperamental because my skin is Creole or I'm half Latin. I don't automatically know how to handle babies because I'm a woman. I do not automatically know how to cook because I'm a woman. No, I'm who and what I am because I'm a person and I've grown into who I am through a sequence of choices based on what I've lived and what I've learned from my experiences. Not because I'm a woman, or Christian, or half-Hungarian or 5-foot-4.

I'm no different from any other person of the world. We are all different, but neither of us is this way or that way "because we have been born this or that". We are who we are because of our decisions, not because the fatalistic view some still ascribe to because for them it's much easier to imagine all the same, treat them the same, ignore them the same, instead of taking the time to know each person for whom they are, and understand that you can't box people up because of whatever a given chromosome has made them to be.

Let's stop generalizing, let's start knowing each other. Let's stop insulting, let's start understanding. We are not our chromosomes, we are not our ethnicity, we are not our religion, we are who we have chosen to be, and I've chosen to be a Person. Treat me so.

Feminism

Yesterday I read a rather disturbing blog entry that slandered feminism, depicting it as a type of sexism or female chauvinism. As I slid down the lines, my eyes grew wider until they were about to pop out. The comment I left lead only to quoting of the text itself, as if an undeliable truth were being revealed in them that my feminist eyes couldn't grasp. I felt the impulse to reply "Honey, I can read". The writer called to turn to "humanism" and leave "machism" and "feminism" aside for "as things are going, in 100 years maybe a group of machists would raise and fight for their rights".

Ever since women started to break from their imposed "inferior condition" they were satanized, their claims and goals diverted and turned into a threat to men, if not to the whole of society. It is known that those women charged with witchcraft in the medieval ages were often free thinking women who didn't abide to the roles society wanted them to assume. Feminists have often been accused of being manhating lesbians, family haters, children haters, bitter, incompetent, unable to find a man, or "women in need of someone to fuck them". It's not a new phenomenon, as we can read it from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, from where I transcribe:

 In the 3rd century bce, Roman women filled the Capitoline Hill and blocked every entrance to the Forum when consul Marcus Porcius Cato resisted attempts to repeal laws limiting women’s use of expensive goods. “If they are victorious now, what will they not attempt?” Cato cried. “As soon as they begin to be your equals, they will have become your superiors.” (Taken from Encyclopaedia Britannica, History of Feminism)

As a fear projected by those who really consider themselves better or superior to women simply for being men, the threat of "women paying back", "women seizing power and condemning men to stay at home, take care of the children and be obedient" has been voiced as if these were the true goals behind fighting for our right to formal education, our right to work, our right to equal labor conditions, our rights to vote and be elected. Have black people pushed after they were recognized by the white as equals, for superiority? Catching white people and sellign them as slaves, taking their property, changing laws and making them pick cotton? Black people are people just like anyone of any other color. Well, women are peopel too, just like men.

This sort of projection of the "reversal of roles" is quite common in the case of a relationship between an abusive partner and an abused counterpart. The more the abusive one abuses thge other, the bigger the fear grows of it coming back to them. The cheating partner becomes more and more suspitious of the cheated one, and throws fits of jealousy thinking they are being cheated too. The boss who constantly harrasses their subalterns fears the moment they will have freedom thinking they will take them down, be bosses and harrass them the same.

The sole thought that those who fight and win their equality won't give a damn about them, would put the past injuries behind and do their own lives, follow their own paths isn't only inunderstandable, but in a way could be seen as offending to the abusers, for that might mean the freed one won't pay attention to it anymore, and actually have a life and goals outside the limited cage set previously for them. So yes, for a cultural frame as the male chauvinism, which builds up entirely on the debasing of the woman and an imagined superiority of the man, when the women disappear as inferior, but not stands in front of it as enemy, but carries on as an equal, the system as a whole collapses. These ideas need desperately of the women either as born slave-animal or as archenemies that seek to take power away from them. Just look back at consul Cato's cry.

Put feminism against male chauvinism, say they are both two sides of the same coin is as misleading, shortsighed and limited as saying that love and jealousy are the same thing, that crimes of passion are comitted from love and rape is the fault of the victim, because they aroused love into the rapist.

The way this topic had been approached in that particular blog entry was quite misleading - perhaps there was some amount of ignorance about the topic of, maybe some amoung of unfortunate wording - aiding to the general satanizing of a movement that's not about reversing traditional roles between the genders, but make sure everybody - regardless of their gender - are considered equal, considered people and get the same rights and the same responsabilities.

Today still there is high discrimination between the genders. Estimates published by UNIFEM indicate that women represent around 70% of the people living in poverty around the globe. The same site indicates that sadly, women have the greatest chance to become poor. The percentage of women who own a mobile phone is lower than the percentage of men who own one. There's also a gap in the access to technology, favoring men over women. The gaps in wages, job opportunities, political participation, access to promotions and leading positions are still there. We have fough, but the fight isn't over yet. It's not a matter of raising to opress men, isn't a race to "get back at men", it's a fight, a struggle to be equal to our fellow men. We are both people, so why are we being treated differently from other people based simply on our gender?

This isn't only about feminism, as I honestly believe we are stronger, seasoned in the fight and we take things from where they come, but it's a sad reflection about all other movements that fight to get the same rights their oppresor ones have. Satanizing, rather than rational, up-front debate is not the way to answer, but a coward, irrational, dirty way to fight back when you know you are not right.