How a Woman Self-destructs

*Firstly –she is in a constant mental game of comparison with every other woman. This is the main source of her unhappiness. It is a fount of inadequacy and jealousy or of pride and self-aggrandizement. *She takes the good and human desire to be loved and turns it into a pressured battlefield. She feels she can only really deserve and attain this ‘love’ by behaving perfectly, looking perfect and achieving ‘perfection’ in various areas of her life. She overworks herself to this end. *She deeply internalises criticism, expectations, disapproval, rejection and ill treatment from others. She forgets that trying to please people is not only none of her business, it is nigh impossible. *She is also ruled by her cruel inner-critic. She fails to drown out its voice until it becomes so loud, it drives her to oft depression. *She cannot be content to be a queen who reigns alone. She lives an ardent search for the ‘Prince Charming’ she has always been taught will complete her. *She joins in the Western worship of the false idol of thinness. She religiously follows the doctrine that to be very waifish is to be desirable, happy and accepted. She sabotages her body and well-being in many faddish ways to achieve the heights of this cruel religion. *She blames herself when the long awaited ‘Prince Charming’ begins to forget to recognise her queen-ship. She trusts popular culture magazines as they inform her that her primary female social role is to be ‘sexy.’ Like Kim Kardashian. *She obsesses over what she sees as her physical ‘flaws and imperfections’. She spends great and on-going efforts to make her visage and body conform. Her body is her primary focus. Not her soul. *She forgets that being desired, being loved and being valued are three separate states. She is drunken by the former instead of expecting and demanding the latter.

The Profession of Prostitution

I recently watched an excellent documentary on prostitution. As someone who opposes the profession (through various arguments of womanism, mental, spiritual and emotional health), I at least want my arguments against it to be educated ones that are fleshed with actual understanding and insight. I wanted to see if the ladies featured in the exposé could make me see that there were some positives to prostitution. It didn’t happen. Here’s why; The two women who came closest to showing being an employee in ‘the oldest profession in the world’ could actually be empowering for some women were two sex workers living the high life in the capital. They spoke of the wealthy men who would use their services and the lavish locations and privileges they encountered through it. These were confident women who knew what they wanted and how to get it. They seemed to be winning. For me the cracks came back into full view when asked how they deal with sleeping with different men they find very unattractive. The confident and ample bodied escort responded that ‘you just switch off.’ You switch off. You are no longer you. This theme continued throughout the rest of the program. Through all the different women that were spoken to, in different levels of prostitution, even in Germany and Amsterdam where the profession is legal and girls are protected, the coping mechanism was the same. Dehumanizing yourself. One lady speaking at a meeting run by an organisation caring for prostitutes on the streets of Manchester verbalised the issue so well. She said (paraphrased) ‘ You are just a thing for someone else’s needs and pleasure. And if you continue to push your own needs down and down, what do you think that does to a person?’ One Dutch man who worked on a likewise behalf of helping women in Amsterdam leave the profession said after they let their guard down, they confess to him the reality of having to go home after a day or night’s work. They talk of going into their shower and feeling the need to stay under the water for an hour. They talk of waking in the night, smelling the scent of a man they have had to sleep with. Such psychological effects are often left out of the prostitution discussion. The ladies who insist the job is ‘empowering,’ have mistaken what that word means. Allowing someone to pay to do what they want with you, while you subdue your own thoughts, needs, personality and natural revulsion, even for a few moments, is actually an act of you suspending your own power. Those at the ‘higher’ end of the profession who earn a lot of money and are requested by wealthy and sometimes famous men, love the lifestyle offered to them by their work. Naturally, they are not going to retire the ‘I am empowered’ and ‘I love sex’ defences very easily. However, when you really dig deep and get behind the diatribes, you expose prostitution for what it essentially is at its bare bones –a seedy trading of women as soulless slabs of flesh.

Faux Feminism

Celebs –male and female- that have heavy use of sexuality in their work, such as singers Rihanna and Miley Cyrus are a cultural norm. They along with other well known personages that make a wage from the business of female sexiness e.g. gentleman’s club owner Peter Stringfellow are posed an ubiquitous question by interviewers, supporters and detractors alike. ‘How, in this era of the highlighting of women’s equality do they justify use of the feminine form for their gains?’ The responses to defend themselves return with similitude. They generally say that far from being demeaning, such sexual exposure of females is actually ‘empowering’ to them. This word is always used ‘empowering.’ What these sexuality-selling celeb-ites actually mean is this, ‘Thank my personal deity we are no longer in the Victorian age of women being trussed up tight in neck high garb....everyone being socially and sexually repressed...and there being no way of me living my life having this much fun!’ -Understandable. But please don’t white-wash a sepulchre by calling your style of work ‘empowering.’ If that is power at all, it is very sad as it seems to be the only significant power today's women have. Also, in this epoch where judging, scrutinising, analysing, ‘fixing,’ exposing, objectifying and merchandising the woman’s body is the norm, industries which comply with this –whether admitting it or not- are not well placed to claim integrity.Frankly, 'empowerment' is not their aim. Further, the exponentially growing porn industry, other ‘exotic’ entertainments and the media beast in general are all threads in a tightly spun web of women’s dehumanisation. This sticky web leaves them feeling obsessively body conscious and caged in. One such as the beautiful Beyoncé can suggestively writhe in sequinned braziers and bum shorts if she wants. The legions of fans love her for it. The icon can sing about and act out being a bold and brazen female as she and the record company have agreed. Bey can also join Miley, Madonna and other similar performers in claiming she and her work are a new feminism. It’s a good sound-bite to stoke up the young female fans who are looking for esteem and real empowerment from somewhere. However, it has no substance as, or congruence with the message of feminist writers. Those such as Germaine Greer have long sought the release of women from the obligation to be merely subjects of lust, control and consumption. Sasha Fierce sings that girls ‘Run the World,’ and thus claims she promotes the value of women. However, these points are not reality. Men almost entirely run the way things are; they run the record companies, production companies, direct the videos, own the porn giants, the newspapers and magazine corporations, the most powerful strings to the Media beast -which controls all of us. Bey, Miley, Rihanna et al are simply its products, swimming along with this terrible tide. ............................................................................................................................................................... “Yet if a woman never lets herself go, how will she ever know how far she might have got? If she never takes off her high-heeled shoes, how will she ever know how far she could walk or how fast she could run?” -Germaine Greer ..................................................................................................................................................... The excellent woman is hard to come by and precious. She trades, is skilful, cares for others and honours God. Beauty is vain. She lets her work do the talking. _Prov 1 paraphrased

I'm Worried About Miley

I’m worried about Miley Cyrus. It’s not because of the current outlandish behaviour, outfits, performances and ripping off of ‘ghetto’ trends she is being slated for. With the combination of extreme amounts of money, youth, exposure and perhaps record company encouragement, I can bypass her questionable choices of expression of late. In any case, I’m not one to hold young pop ‘stars’ as offering great lifestyle examples. What concerns me is her dialogue about the place she is in her life. I’ve seen an interview clip of her talking about how she is having ‘so much fun’ finding out and expressing who she is. Sounds like the familiar lost adolescent jargon. The concern comes more so from when she talks about the break-up of the relationship with her former fiancé. To add vinegar to inevitable wounds, tabloids have been all too happy to show said fiancé moving on and smooching with other girls. Miley insists she is not even really thinking about the break-up, as she is having ‘so much fun’ and loves where she is in her life right now and loves being independent and can ‘express’ herself etc .etc , yada yada yada. Me thinks she doth protest too much. It really is reflective of the ‘I’m fine’ syndrome women often hide beneath when we are not willing to admit we are actually a million miles from ‘fine.’ I know Miley is young and currently enjoying great career success and publicity. I’m sure she has enough shows to do and parties to attend to keep her adrenaline-charged (until she perhaps finally breaks in a way outsiders can see). Yet despite the ‘my life is great’ show, please don’t try to tell me that behind it all she is not feeling real heartbreak. (I won’t be silly and put a pun about her dad’s most famous song here. Though I want to.) The love of her young life is currently gone from it –she admits they currently don’t speak; she’s just 'so busy'- and unless she is some sort of cyborg, she must be going through some unpleasant cloudiness at the moment. I think she’d garner respect if she expressed that things aren’t all posies and roses. It’s fair enough if she’s chosen to keep a side of herself closed to avert media intrusion or if she doesn’t want the tedium of media blaming her current behaviours on ‘inner turmoil’ and a need to act out. Generally though, if someone is going through a time of recovery from a bruised soul they shouldn’t be ashamed to admit, allowing breathing space to deal with it. (As long as you are not allowing self-pity to draw you in and suffocate you.) It is not admitting weakness, simply letting people know you are a human being going through human things. So just because Miss Cyrus may be, we don’t have to be ashamed to talk it out during times when we are left a little broken.

Why I'm Not a 'Feminist'

I am concerned with issues which affect and hurt my fellow woman kind. I am deeply emotionally and intellectually invested in the social discourse which keeps females bound up in uncomfortable confines; the glaring rules which state a woman has no worth unless she fits the physical and behavioural mold this cruel world has undertaken to construct. (You only need to read my former blog posts to see this) However –I cannot call myself a FEMINIST. This is because this title has become a dirty word with connotations that leave me overly perturbed. If it ever used to be, it is now not simply a noble description of any person who is concerned with promoting the value of the fairer sex. It is now synonymous with assimilating base human characteristics, gender division and male bashing. Feminist writer Germaine Greer spoke my feelings well when she lamented that the ‘feminism’ of today is not what feminists of her generation wanted. The ‘feminism’ of today has women trying a bizarre role reversal and appropriating men’s worst behaviours in a game of anti-social one-upmanship. Girls are increasingly binge drinking, displaying promiscuous behaviour and acting ‘laddish.’ Germaine and her peers didn’t want this –women emulating classless men- they wanted women to be able to be something better. I can only find a strange ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ unease when I see how women who feel they are displaying a righteous contemporary feminism express it. This feeling followed a comment made by one of my university lecturers who is a respected Spanish feminist. She was speaking about misconceptions and stereotypes. “People think because I’m a feminist I must not have a boyfriend,” she said. “Well I do. Y tiene un culo esplendido.” (meaning– and he has a fantastic bum!). The class of young women laughed and I even heard one encourage “Go on girl!” The hypocrisy of the situation almost physically hurt my tender heart. Imagine if a male lecturer were to say that about his female lover! There would be outrage. Yet a woman can reduce her male partner to his taught gluteus Maximus and it’s an acceptable joke. I know this type of thing is a response to the humiliating sexist belittling women have endured since the beginning of forever, but copying what men have done doesn’t make anything better. It spits on the whole point of what I thought feminists originally wanted –both genders being treated with equal value and respect.

Here is a perfect further example of things which justify my perturb-ment. A song parody currently being promoted by a trio of irked feminists. R’n’B crooner Robin Thicke has had a popular single out called Blurred Lines. The song has a video of naked models prancing around and lyrics which talk about a woman as a helpless sexual creature. In response to Mr Thicke’s objectifying ditty, three law students from Auckland created a female version humiliating men. They talk of ‘emasculating’ the man and proceed to slap the bums of hunky males wearing briefs. Why must your ‘feminism’ be about emasculating and denigrating men? There is nothing noble or intellectual about that. It’s an immature game of getting men back by trying to do to them what the worst of them have done to us currently and historically. It’s all so silly. This topsy-turvy faux-feminism malarkey. That’s why I can never call myself a ‘feminist.’

The love I have to give may be too much for you.

The love I have to give may be too much for you. It will bend you out of shape. You won’t recognise yourself once it has entered into your tiny little world, spoiling everything like a hurricane. It will sweep away the silly things you used to hold dear. And the silly thoughts you kept like twine strung around your half dormant mind. It will fill you and frighten you. It will ruin you and make you all at once. It will show you that though you held much in your hands, you were simply a pauper. And blind. And deaf. And dead. And pitiable. It will make your colours brighter. It will force you to hear the minutiae of the universe’s music. You will be over-awed. It will destroy everything you thought you knew and everything you thought you were and leave you without foundations, no walls, no handles to hold on to. Just it and you, slowly merging and reforming; like larvae eating up the death held in rotting limbs. I suppose I shouldn’t blame you for running from me. The love I have to give you may be too much.

Our Internal Stories

I was out amongst the shops the other day. ‘Among the shops’ is one of my favourite places to be. Ashamed as I am to admit that I so often resort to fulfilling the materialistic, first world female stereotype. But that’s by-the-by… So, I was in a market and a clamour was building a few yards behind me, like a small unpredictable whirlwind…A small-ish lady was shouting at one of the stallholders to ‘give me my money back,’ and the aplomb with which she vented her aggression gave the impression this was no novice in the field of scene-making. A veritable ‘scene’ was created, with people watching, commenting and a couple of brave souls coming to the aide of the stallholder who held his own as defiantly as the small-ish lady. The situation escalated. She descended. She screamed abuse at him with a few general terms of offense sprinkled with some choice racist slurs (the lady was white, the stallholder Asian) Another male stallholder came to the defense of his friend and told the vociferous woman to get out. She turned on him and it got physical. She threw blows and spat at the man. He restrained her with another female stallholder who intervened, maybe seeing it was more appropriate that another woman handle her and not a huge guy. They held her to the ground as she thrashed and screamed; it was like something you’d see in a disturbing TV program on life in a high security correctional facility. I left the market and crossed the road to continue with my everyday business. I was in the spot long enough to see police arrive and take the girl outside to talk to. I am one of life’s observers. From the other side of the street, I took the chance to observe the girl more closely than I could inside the market. She stood with her face defiantly away from the officer as he spoke to her. Her whole stance was defiant, she stood with legs shoulder distance apart as I notice boys do when they are trying to look ‘hard.’ Her manner in general was very 'masculine'. She had her hair cropped close to her head, and wore baggy clothes usually seen draping from teenage boys going through that Justin Bieber phase of trying to look 'street' and tough. I noticed the large Celtic cross tattooed on her neck. I noticed the smattering of street slang in her language; terms such as ‘nah blud.’ I noticed her seemingly more timid yet similarly dressed friend who’d been waiting outside for her. In life’s little moments it’s so interesting to realise what our internal commentator makes of the whole thing. Mine always creates a backstory for people I come across. Sometimes it’s good to realise everyone has a story and has been through things that make them who they are. It makes us less quick to judge and condemn. It may be the natural born writer in me that uses situations to let my mind venture. But sometimes creating stories for people may just be patronising assumption. Mine was probably the latter. It went like this; ‘This is probably someone who has grown up in care home. Probably been locked up before, as is statistically all too common amongst ‘institutionalized’ children. She probably learned to be this way as a defence within the dysfunctional environments to which she’s been subjected. She must hate being made out to be weaker than men. It must have rocked her to rage when she was being held down on the market floor like that. She’s probably been restrained in a similar manner at some point in her life, in the institutions she’s been in, because I’m sure this isn’t the first time she’s manifested that violent temper’ –and so on. I don’t entirely know what the focal point of this post is. I guess it’s just intrinsic to want to write about daily experiences. This blog is ‘The Conundrum of Self’ –maybe I'm just trying to analyse the way my mind interprets environmental happenings. Anyway, bless you if you read all this. Love x