You're A Girl! 50 Shades Of Feminine

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

You're a girl

My grandmother exclaimed reproachfully when she learned that I had received a bronze TRP badge for shooting. "Please don't tell anyone about this!"

My charming grandmother Sarah, who could create a salad, a scandal and a hat out of everything in the world, was a real woman and by no means a housewife. She was a doctor, traveled in an ambulance train throughout the war, dug potatoes during breaks, despite bilateral pulmonary tuberculosis, and in peacetime she made a very good career. Her grandfather died at Stalingrad, so even after the war it was not easy for her. And with all this, "you're a girl, so don't you dare show your strength" was stitched into her tightly.

Not much has changed in the past 35 years. "Like a girl", "female logic", "in a woman's way", are still swear words. But girls of five, seven, even 10 years old do not yet feel this, they run, fight and live in full force. At what point do we become infected with the idea that being a girl means trying to be "shorter"? And being strong means being a man.

You might think one of us is choosing whether to be a woman, or instead a firefighter, doctor, or programmer. And for women, as for firefighters, there is a strictly prescribed charter of the sentry service.

"Can you walk in a cab? Do you do hair removal? Do you want to get married? When are you going to have children? Are you a feminist? Are you just flirting with this guy? What do you want? Who are you?"

All these ridiculous questions will be asked to a 13-year-old simply because he had to put on a bra "(from Caitlin Moran's book" Being a Woman ").

Today it has become very difficult. On the one hand, we are still being bullied about everything "primordially feminine" - long skirts, sitting cross-legged, keeping your opinion to yourself, blinking helplessly, laughing thrillingly, sexually beckoning and not being clever! Do you hear? Don't be smart!

- Do you have any idea how planes can take off from such a small aircraft carrier?

- With the help of a catapult, I guess.

Such a frightened look in the style of "Oh, mom, talking crocodile!" I haven't seen it for a long time. Well, yes, I am the captain of the Israel champions team in "What? Where? When?" Did my X chromosome fall out from this or something? Or did your breasts suddenly become three sizes smaller?

On the other hand, you are told that a woman is exactly the same person, simply gifted with other secondary and primary sexual characteristics. As if it helps in some way, when you discover different emotional reactions in yourself, a different approach to solving problems, completely different needs of the body. A sudden desire to "nest", to surrender, to belong, at the same time to command and be everything in the world, like air or water.

Or when pregnancy, childbirth, abortions come into your life. The connection that exists between you and the child, and which no father has, no matter how wonderful he may be. He does not breastfeed and will never be able to feel in this place. The only correct, absolute and irreplaceable.

This is all terribly confusing and throws us from one extreme to another.

So many of my friends wanted to be boys. Simply because then you can wear pants, shoot pistols, climb trees, play with cars and not suffer from cooking. With age, it turned out that becoming a boy was too troublesome. You will have to be a girl and struggle to choose specialties related to physics, mathematics or surgery. Plan, saw, drill, assemble and disassemble iron, washing machine and fan. Or, for example, start your own business, even if it's not a beauty salon.

I never wanted to be a boy. And I climbed over fences right in the neckline and in heels. But this is not at all from understanding my role as a woman, but because I believed that trousers fit me like a cow's saddle.

I know women who are scared to death of being sexy, because it "humiliates them as a person" and deliberately go into an asexual image in order to escape this "dirt".

I know women who perceive sexuality exclusively in the spirit of glossy magazines - perfectly licked, in lace lingerie and ready for sale.

I know women who are friends only with men, because they are bored with "all this feminine", whatever they mean by that.

I know women who "put on" lipstick, ruffles and other magazine femininity, just because they are tired of living alone and want sex.

I know women who decide to live alone because "the last good guy was run over by a tram in '68".

I know women who are offended when they want them, because they really want to have a "tourist's dream - big, warm and not sticky" and somewhere else inside, it seems to them that if they "want", it means that they are obliged to "give".

I know women who do not allow themselves to earn their full strength, because it is "not feminine" and men are afraid of independent women.

I know women who are forced to dress in "men's armor" at work, because otherwise no one will seriously listen to a fundamentally new algorithm that they have thought of.

I know women who are embarrassed by their love of comfort and cuisine, because they are not "home chickens" and not Stepford wives.

I know women who are worried about their "asexuality" because a real woman should be passionate.

I know women who hide their passion and impetuosity, because this is for stupid hysterics …

I know a lot of different women who consciously or unconsciously try to squeeze themselves into this or that image of the "right woman" or do everything not to fall into this image. And I managed to visit many of them myself, just as I was tormented by contradictions and absolutely not understanding what the world wants from me.

Probably the most important understanding and discovery for me was that there are a huge number of ways to be a woman, moreover, you can change roles as often and quickly as suits you. And no "masculine" qualities contradict the fact that you are a woman, because inside each of us there is both. Male and female. They develop differently at different stages of life. And the combination of both in us is infinitely individual and beautiful in the absence of "correct" proportions.

It is impossible and unnecessary to become a perfect woman, just as it is unthinkable to reach the horizon and fall over the edge of the universe. But you can embody all those images that you like. An interesting and quite New Year's idea to think about which of your favorite heroines or goddesses you would like to become and in what situations. Or what kind of hero. Probably the most important thing is in what situations which of them can help you. This makes it clear why we need this or that role, this or that image.

Trying on different roles is at least mentally useful. And it's even better to embody. I really like the word "embody". Let illusions take on flesh. Make fantasies come true. Not a bad thing for adults.