female

I talked alot this morning about what it means to be a feminist. It's a word that gets a bad name and I understand in someways why. I used to call or consider myself one. And perhaps I can still find a lot of good in parts: rejecting worldly pressures to conform to what it means to look "womanly" (makeup all the time...looking perfect all the time...for a guy's attraction...to buy clothes.) I think the bad part of being "woman" comes from what you have to "buy." And that it's required for the world's approval of an individual woman.

For instance. I think it's bad when a girl feels she has to buy makeup to appear beautiful at all times. That that is the face they have to wear to feel socially appealing. I think that is a sad pressure put on people. I think that cosmetics are probably a bad thing that no one should have to purchase. But. but. but. From being one who threw away her makeup and razors for a few years, I also understand how grooming and adorning oneself isn't necessarily bad. Consuming mindlessly is bad. Advertising and messages about what it means to look "correct" is bad. But rejecting oneself is even worse. Rejecting where one comes from is worse. And I know for me, this is what happened when I deemed myself "feminist."

Sure, I wasn't curvy, dolled up, or shaven, (things that society calls womanly) BUT I was a slave to something completely different and completely worse. I was in bondage to my own insecurity and "uniqueness." The statements that I was trying to make was the only thing that gave me value, so I thought. That was my identity. It was such a selfish mindset. I was only concerned with looking NOT that way, NOT hanging out with those people, and with judging THOSE people.

My worldview was completely reactionary, with nothing grounded in truth.

Now, I shave when I want to, I don't really care if I do or don't, but (even when summer comes around. why is it really that bad to have hairy legs?? i'm lazy, i still don't like showering :) sometimes I like getting dolled up, I like going through the motions, but sometimes I really don't. But arn't these things so arbitrary. so small? Isn't it obvious how these things are more for self gratification and identity. To make oneself feel like their value is in making it obvious just how unique and individual he or she is?

Really I still don't like thinking about men's roles vs women's roles. I think there are differences between men and women but nothing that makes one less or more than the other.

This is a subject I could go on and on about. It's a really hard thing to write about since I feel in someways I could appear to contradict myself. But I don't really care about that. That's all I have to say right now.

I have more. but later