Oh, Yentl - #17

So... I was looking at all my old posts and realized that I'd never published this, even though I finished it in June.


Oops.


So here's the original experiment. It may or may not be worth mentioning that I started dating this really great guy the next month. I've mostly given up on the girliness thing since, mostly because I'm on the cusp of one of those self-reinvention periods and jeans and T-shirts are the only thing that feel good right now... but at least I know I can do it if I need to, you know?

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Screen shot of Yentl.

There's this theme in Yentl (which is totally worth a watch, if only because Mandy Patinkin is awesome) that I find myself playing out time and time again: I look at all these gorgeous, sexy, intelligent, soft, nurturing women and go, "Well, who wouldn't want a wife? I do. Women are amazing." Then I realize, "Oh yeah. I've got what they've got. Doh."

Main difference: I'm don't capitalize on my assets.

I mean, I've got a lot going for me, biologically speaking:

1. Long, gorgeous hair. I keep it up in a bun or ponytail most of the time.
2. A body that can pull off almost anything. I wear outdated shirts and jeans I've had since I was 16.
3. Amazing legs. The skin's kind of funny but I still like to sit and admire them sometimes.
4. Gracefulness, or so I infer from all the "you look like a ballerina" comments. I slouch under heavy bookbags and lumpy sweaters.
5. A facade of innocence, which combined with the sexiness, could be powerhouse.
6. Intelligence. This is the one thing I don't ignore/downplay.
7. A certain womanly disposition toward nurturing and being domestic. I'm usually too tired to do this, and don't have anyone on which to conveniently lavish my affections.

Another main liability when it comes to being one of those girls who looks like they've got it all figured out: I get really anxious around people. I'm... not shy, exactly. I just don't like it when people pay attention to me, because I'm never sure what they're thinking and I'm... insecure? Something like that. (Only when I'm around people. On my own and among confirmed friends my confidence levels are securely at above-rooftop levels.)

So this project is an attempt to capture the girliness and... well, shallowness, for lack of a better word... of all those gorgeous girls I see walking around. I probably won't go all the way with that (saving that for another, bigger experiment for when I'm not taking 21 credits), but it'll be a toe in the water.

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Format: One-week experiment

Goal: Do one thing every day to embrace girly side.

Goal met? Yup-yup.

So here's what happened:

June 7: Wore hair down. Took a long lazy bath at one in the morning (when I can stay in as long as I want 'cause roommates are asleep) with bubbles and goat milk soap and stuff. My legs are smooth and I feel very luxurious.

June 8: Nail polish! I'd actually been wearing it since this experiment, and stopped for a few days because I was just too busy. As soon as I stopped, my nails started cracking and I started picking at them and biting them again. Bad habit. Colorful nails tend to remind/motivate me to not pick or nibble, and also remind me to moisturize before bed... So I'm hoping that by next week I'll see some minor difference in my hands. I should mention that the polish looks like crap because I was in a hurry. But hey, effort: made.

No, these aren't my nails. They are pretty cool, though.
Photo by dreamglowpumpkincat210.

June 9: Hair down. I never wear my hair down--largely because some people tend to become absolutely fixated on my hair, which is awkward--but the thing is, when it's down I feel like someone awesome from a Juliet Marillier novel. My hair feels like a cape when it's loose and flowing all over my shoulders, and while it's not exactly fashionable and sometimes is way too much... it's also pretty awesome.

June 10: I put on makeup. By "makeup" I should explain that this means "eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss, and a tiny bit of brown eye shadow." This is a very big deal. The inclusion of the eye shadow alone is sort of remarkable. I don't really do makeup... But I look amazing with it on. I can't say that it really affects the way I feel--once it's on I forget about it until I rub my eyes and smear it all over--but every time I looked in the mirror I did an appreciative double-take.

June 11: Today, I frolicked. I didn't do anything remotely "feminine" as such... but I spent the day in the most gorgeous place on earth, which includes my favorite meadow (I have a favorite meadow). That was enough to make me feel all kinds of jubalicious. So... setting is important. So is wearing flowers in your hair and lying around in long grasses for hours and hours. :)

June 12: Hair down again. And walked around barefoot. I forget how important being barefoot is to my overall feeling of womanliness. Heels make me feel distinctly feminine and powerful, but bare feet make me feel magical.

June 13: My nails are black. I bought black polish because it was the color most likely to match stuff out of my options, but I wasn't sure if I'd like wearing it or if I'd just feel like some high school emo-goth. Turns out that I love it... It looks like my fingers are covered in shiny ink! Oh, and yes, my hands are looking much better in terms of moisture/general maintenance. I'm wearing earrings today too, and rings. Starting to get a little extreme here...

June 14: Today, I wore jeans and a badly-fitting university T-shirt. And I felt like a sexy, sexy woman. Go figure.

Conclusions:

I'm more chill with walking like a woman. I'm starting to stand straight when I walk and relax into a slouch when I'm sitting, which is the exact opposite of how things normally go.

Now Audrey did womanly right. Also: cat!
Photo by pwbaker.

I feel so self-absorbed with this experiment, like all the above updates are all, "Look, I'm so hot. Look at me, aren't I pretty? Look how pretty I am?" Gag. But my yang and yin sides have started to point at each other and yammer in my head, and they're kind of enthusiastic about this mutual appreciation society. So yeah. I'm gorgeous. (So are you, dear reader.)

So... I'm gonna call this one a success.

Try this:
If you're like me and are naturally awful at being womanly, imitation is your best friend. Pick one of those girly girls, pinpoint one thing they're doing right, and try it on. (Just one, ya'll. More than that and you'll start to feel insecure and not like yourself. Ease into this one.)

If you aren't like me and are naturally girly and cute... Well, more power to you. Carry on. :)

Coming Soon: Ground and Center. Probably.

Women's Issues, lol :)

Warning: This post is pretty off-topic for this blog. I was writing a short synthesis for a class (we do these weekly) and discovered, in the middle of writing, that I actually had something to say. I thought it might be of interest to some of my readers, so it's included below

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Photo by Nono Fara

While going through the assigned readings for this week, I discovered a small, interesting, and disturbing trend of self-censorship and apology from and in relation to women writers. Donald M. Murray notes in “Teaching the Other Self: The Writer’s First Reader” about “what should be left out [of a piece of writing] as well as what should be put in." Murray was not speaking about women writers, but it made me think of trends from the pieces by Juana de la Cruz and Elizabeth A. Flynn, as well as in recent articles I’ve read in the past week, most notably a Huffington Post article titled “A Message to Women From a Man: You Are Not ‘Crazy’” by Yashir Ali.

Flynn’s article, “Composing as a Woman,” opens with a quote from Adrienne Rich’s “Taking Women Students Seriously.” The very title of her piece suggests that women writers are not, by default, taken seriously, and the quote validates this when it advocates “listening and watching … for silences, the absences, the nameless, the unspoken, the encoded—for there we will find the true knowledge of women." Later, Flynn points out that, though women writers have contributed to the global body of literature from its inception, the academic world has failed to adequately research and analyze the voice and impact of women writers. “Women’s perspectives have been suppressed, silenced, marginalized, written out of what counts as authoritative knowledge,” Flynn says, and adds, “Men become the standard against which women are judged."

Both Rich and Flynn discuss silence as a major theme of women’s rhetoric (particularly Flynn on page 427 of her paper). It appears again in de la Cruz’s “The Poet’s Answer to the Most Illustrious Sister Filotea de la Cruz,” when she explains her discomfort with her written reply, saying, “if I knew all that I ought, I would not so much as write these words. Yet I protest that I do so only to obey you; and with such misgiving that you owe me … for taking up my pen with all this fear." Though hundreds of years have passed between de la Cruz and Flynn’s work, the thread of women feeling the need to censor and silence themselves appears as strong as ever, both in life and in writing.

Though there may be some interaction between the two, evidence appears strong that this authorial silencing is a product of cultural conditioning, not a cause of it. “No wonder some women are unconsciously passive aggressive when expressing anger, sadness, or frustration,” says Ali in his Huffington Post article. “For years, they have been subjected to so much gaslighting [casual invalidating of authentic emotional experiences] that they can no longer express themselves in a way that feels authentic to them."

Photo by Sukanto Debnath

This perspective and belief that women as a collective are still falling short of their potential as writers and rhetoricians strikes many men as absurd and over-reactive. When I bring up women’s issues, my boyfriend—normally an open-minded, thoughtful man—becomes exasperated and doesn’t understand what I’m upset about. Many male bloggers, comedians, and other rhetoricians express confusion at feminist anger and demands to be taken seriously. However, as a woman, I understand what the fuss is about. I’ve been subject to odd double standards when it comes to expectations of intellect and behavior. I’ve made opinionated comments in classes and been met with laugher, raised eyebrows, and sidelong remarks about my femininity or ability to be in a relationship (“Remind me never to date you,” comes to mind), and had, moments later, a man in the same class make an even more assertive comment to be met only with thoughtful agreement or disagreement. I’ve had men make comments to me about women’s rights and chivalry as if the two can’t simultaneously exist in the same world. And because of that, I, too, have automatically learned to censor myself.

I fight the desire to be silent, mentioned by de la Cruz, every time I take up my pen against a controversial issue or disturbing trend. Constantly, as I write about emotionally charged political or social issues, whether for a class or on Facebook, I find myself erasing the most honest sentences and replacing them with watered-down versions laden with smiley faces and LOLs. I don’t do this because I truly feel my opinions are too strong or blunt, but because I know that unless I tone things down, I’m going to be perceived as an aggressive, arrogant, man-hating feminazi (though none of those labels are the truth). Unless I water myself down or present my views in ways that are safe, soft, and feminine, I get lumped into the category of Angry Feminists and any male or co-ed audience I might have had stops listening.

Much like members of the Occupy Wall Street movement, I’ve so far managed to raise an issue without coming up with any solutions. But what can be done? Women have tried to push equality before. Politically, we’ve made progress: women can hold almost any job, frequently out-perform men in universities, and are a world away from 1940 in terms of legally protected equal rights. But when it comes to our opinions, we are still told to be silent and well behaved. We are still not allowed to make controversial statements without being lumped into the Angry Feminist box. We are still treated as if we’re sexually unappealing or unfit to be mothers if we don’t tone down our views to make them soft and palatable.

Photo by pedrosimoes7

“Women’s experience is not entirely a distorted version of male reality, it is not entirely elusive, and it is worthy of recuperation,” Flynn says at the conclusion of her paper. “We must encourage them to become self-consciously aware of what their experience in the world has been and how this experience is related to the politics of gender." In short, we must find a way to validate and encourage the exploration and expression of female experience, regardless of whether it fits our predefined notions of what it means to be a woman. A society where women are allowed to freely and fully share their opinions and experience without having their femininity or intellectual validity challenged is one I’d like to live in, but I’ll be the first to confess that, despite my hopeful ideals, I’m still not sure how to get there.