Feminism and the Man-Hating Double Standard

I was raised to be  man-hater.  I grew up in a home with a single mom (who happened to be both mentally and emotionally unstable, but I’ll delve deeper into that some other time), and three sisters.  Five females under one roof and no males…at least not ones that stuck around for long.  My mother gave me the impression that all boys were evil.  According to her, they were all smelly, cruel, disgusting, and stupid.  Women were by far the superior sex.  I had to remind myself of this important information when, starting at about age 11, I thought some boys were cute.  I wanted to play with the cute ones at recess and sit next to them at lunch.  But they were boys, which meant they were evil.  Even though I was young, I knew that eventually I was going to have a boyfriend.  It looked fun and exciting to have a boyfriend, and almost all girls had them when they got older.  I saw my older sisters having boyfriends, and I knew at some point in the past my mom had boyfriends and even a husband.  But how does that work?  If all boys are evil, why did girls want to kiss them, hold hands, and go to the movies with them? 

Third-wave feminism was a prevalent theme in our home throughout the 90s, presenting itself in the form of films such as The First Wives Club, Boys On The Side, If These Walls Could Talk, and anything on the Lifetime channel.  The message that all men were terrible human beings was clear and deeply ingrained.  Unfortunately, this message did me no good at all.  I didn’t grow into an empowered young woman who wasn’t going to take any crap from the lesser sex.  Instead, I resembled one of the sad, wounded characters from a man-eating episode of Ricki Lake.

At age 17, I started dating my first real boyfriend.  (I know what you’re thinking.  I was a late bloomer.)  I thought it was amazing that a boy actually liked me and wanted to be with me.  Nevermind the fact that he was controlling and short-tempered, I mean, he was a boy after all; what did I expect?  I figured there probably wasn’t another boy out there that was much better, and if there was, they probably wouldn’t want to date a weirdo like me.  I was an insecure 17-year-old, and I excused everything my boyfriend did that I disapproved of because I thought being alone was the worse alternative.  So at age 18 I married my boyfriend.  I stayed with him in a nightmare of a marriage for the next eight years, and after leaving him last fall, my life has finally begun.

The strong feminist message that was instilled in me growing up gave me the idea that all men were bastards, and the ones that acted nice just wanted to have sex, or were in a good mood because they were having sex.  This skewed and harmful message about men is not what led me into the arms of a guy that wasn’t nice, but it certainly didn’t help.  If I had been taught that respect goes both ways, and that boys deserve it just as much as girls do, I would have known that a healthy relationship was possible.

I don’t necessarily have anything against feminists.  Certainly through history, they have helped bring about much needed change and have made tremendous strides toward gender equality in this country.  Sadly, our nation has an ugly history of treating women like second-class citizens, but that doesn’t make it okay to bash men now.  I hate double standards, and for me, it’s unacceptable for pre-teens to wear shirts that say “Boys are smelly, throw rocks at them!” and for the bumbling, idiot father to be the butt of every joke in commercials, sitcoms, and even major studio films.  We wouldn’t stand for women to be portrayed in such a degrading and disrespectful way, so why is it okay to portray men like this?  You may be thinking I’m just being uptight, overreacting, and need to “learn to take a joke”, but I disagree.  I’m not a feminist, I’m an equalist.  Girls and boys deserve mutual respect.  As a society, how can we ladies expect to be treated like princesses when we are constantly breaking men down, and expecting them to fail before giving them a fair chance?  Luckily, I found out that there are good guys out there.  And I’d venture to guess they’re not too keen on man-haters.

Facing My Shadow

When I was seven years old, I dressed up as Peter Pan's shadow for Halloween.  It was one of my best costumes ever.  It consisted of a black unitard with a big gray S on it, floppy slippers, and lots of pretty silver sparkles. Now I've had my share of awesome Halloween costumes (a carton of milk, a bunch of grapes, a bag of popcorn - I like to look in the kitchen for inspiration), but Peter Pan's shadow was one of the very best.  I was thinking today about how lucky Peter Pan was that his shadow just runs away and he is left to live his carefree life with the Lost Boys in Never-Never Land.  How nice would it be to just not have to deal with your problems?  To be able to lose your shadow, to run away, to not have to look back?

I've gone through a lot of changes in my life over the past two years: moved to Alaska, changed jobs, became pregnant and miscarried, got a divorce, embarked on a new relationship, moved several times.  Big problems have accompanied these changes.  Problems that I've had to learn to deal with.  I am 27 years old; I'm a big girl now, and I have to deal with my own problems.  Unfortunately, there has never really been someone there to hold my hand and help me deal with things.  I didn't have parents I felt I could go to for help, and I closed myself off from kind people who would have given me their support out of my own bitterness and embarrassment.  So what have I always done?  I've simply not dealt with them. 

Not dealing with things kept me in an unhappy, unhealthy marriage for over eight years.  This in turn kept me from making new friends, from experiencing new things - essentially, it kept me from truly living.

Sometimes I've felt so overwhelmed with things I don't want to deal with that I've fantasized about hopping on the next one-way plane to Idaho and leaving all my troubles behind.  But it doesn't work that way.  Unlike Peter Pan, I can't just run away from my shadow.  My problems will follow me wherever I go, and it's up to me to be a big girl and resolve them on my own.
 
I have finally learned that I owe it to myself and my loved ones to take care of issues that are bothering me right away.  You know, come to think of it, Peter Pan's shadow is not such a great costume after all.

The big debut of my bloggety-blog!

DUN DUN DUN.....my new blog!!  I don't really know where to begin, so I'll start with what's been on my mind lately: reality TV shows.  It's truly mind-boggling to me how many ridiculous reality shows are on television.  (I won't even get into the Sarah Palin one.)  Now I don't watch TV, but I do listen to the radio in the morning, and that is how I heard about the groundbreaking new reality show Extreme Couponing, which debuted last night on TLC to over 2 million viewers. 0_0  Wow.  It's a show about coupons.  People using coupons.  Yep, that's the whole show - coupon aficionados doing what they do best - and 2 million people tuned in to witness the dramatics.

Wait!  No, that's not fair.  It's not just "people using coupons"....it's people saving money by being smart, thrifty and resourceful....people being frugal, and by being so, are providing their families with a better life, and their children with a more promising future...these are selfless, honorable people who scour every Sunday paper, spend countless hours cutting, organizing, and planning, then slave away on their shopping trips to make the most out of said coupons....are you thinking what I'm thinking?  These people are the lifeblood of this country!  They are heroes! *sheds a tear*...Sorry, I got a little carried away there.  

But I digress.  Reality shows are a guilty pleasure, but why do we get pleasure from watching eccentric people doing mundane things?  For me, personally, the popularity of "reality" TV highlights a disturbing trend in this country toward mindless, dumbed-down entertainment; yet, I also understand how watching people more messed up than you can be a great ego boost (the Jerry Springer effect.)  I'm left sitting here pondering the novelty of it all, and wondering what riveting show they will come up with next.  I just looked out the window for inspiration and there's an Xpress Lube across the street. Maybe the next reality show will be about people getting their vehicle's oil changed. Wow, I better patent this idea before someone else steals it!