Idolizing Dominant Men

Note: I always feel for some reason bad when my posts don't beautifully connect to our current readings. But, they still relate to the class as a whole, so have fun listening to me rant. :)

Women in fiction always seem to crush on tall men with muscles that could protect them, like a knight in shining armor - someone who could save them as the damsel in distress.

I think we're just consumed with the idea of dominant men.

~

So, yeah, I date a short guy. Wait, in actuality, he's about average height for a guy, but I just happen to be 1.5 inches taller than him or something. Now, it's not like I have to stoop down to his level to just smooch his face, but it is enough to where I have to look down on him.

And I'm tired of comments on it. People think it's insane to date a short guy, like it's a marvel only seen in circuses! In fact, I know multitudes of women who have declared, "I will never date a boy shorter than me," like it's some sort of crime. It's even in MEMES - it's that big of a deal!!

Exhibit A ;P

Why is this a standard?? Why are do girls seem to only crave men taller than them, stronger than them, who make more money than them?

In this culture, men are put more in control and in more dominant positions, and I believe it's being reflected and reinforced in our dating standards. Plethora of women outright refuse to date men seen as shorter or scrawnier or not as strong or more sensitive, et cetera, because it's seen as unmanly or weak or just outright embarrassing.

It's even seen in common dating practices! Men are generally expected to ask out the girl first, text first, pay for the dates, propose, give their wives their last name, but shouldn't these practices be outdated?

We see women make strides in so many areas, like Wong dominating the comedic stage, Gadsby being bold with her story, and Fey/Bloom remaining vocal and true against the comedy gatekeepers, Letterman and Maron. However, women still have not reach equality if we still expect men to hold the door for us and pull out our chairs as if we're incapable of doing it ourselves. We need to take men down a notch in terms of beauty/dating standards and instead both sides of the relationships equal. Even if other people claim it isn't "romantic" or cute, pay the bill! Love a boy with scrawny arms! Ask the boy out first! And take it from me - dating a shorter boy is cute and fun! Women can claim more confidence and boldness if we stop criticizing men for appearing weak and un-dominant and instead we commend women for appearing strong. Together let's reshape our standards and be better women for it.

Week 7: My Contribution to the Guilty Pleasure Posts

I’m jumping on the guilty pleasures bandwagon because I’ve enjoyed reading all of the other guilty pleasure posts.  As there have been several posts of this nature, I assume you know the drill: I don’t feel guilty for enjoying these things, but “guilty pleasures” is the most convenient phrase to use for those activities and pastimes that society as a whole may mock or look down upon. I think it’s fascinating that I’ve gotten to know some of my classmates better after reading about their guilty pleasures. Guilty pleasures seem to capture the intricacies and passions of a person in a way that few other things can. When I started thinking about what my guilty pleasures could be, I realized that the things I thought of revealed a lot about me. Here are three of my guilty pleasures:

1.      Memorizing Things: I love finding a new poem that I like and committing it to memory. I have ten stanzas of a very long poem called “The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred Tennyson memorized. I’ve memorized the entirety of “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll, and “Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost. For a lot of poems—“The Raven”, by Edgar Allen Poe, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot, “Tonight I Can Write” by Pablo Neruda, etc.—I only have a couple of stanzas memorized. I love reciting the poems I have memorized to myself and quoting them in daily conversation. In addition to poetry, I memorize movie dialogue and book passages. I can quote five minute movie scenes from memory, and recite whole paragraphs from books I’ve read.

2.      Rereading: I thought everyone read books over and over again just like me for a long time. Then, I had a conversation with someone who had never reread a book and I was mystified. Rereading books is my life! I’ve read the Harry Potter series so many times I’ve lost count. Literally. I have no idea how many times I’ve read those seven books, but the number has got to be in the double digits. There’s an element of comfort in rereading books. It’s like returning home, or visiting an old friend. I love discovering things in a book that I didn’t notice the first time I read it, and it’s so cool to see how all of the plot plays out when you already know how the book ends.

3.      Listening To Bootlegged Concerts: There are hundreds of audio recordings on YouTube of Queen concerts from the ‘70s and ‘80s, and I’ve listened to a lot of them. Eighty-six to be exact. I’m subscribed to three bootleg channels on YouTube, and I look forward to each new release. It’s so awesome to think that the recordings I listen to on YouTube today were recorded on a rudimentary tape recorder in the 20^th century. Despite their age, the majority of the recordings are in amazing quality. I feel as though I’m in the room with my favorite band. Bootlegs are technically illegal, but, because I didn’t do the recording, and these bootlegs are decades old, I don’t feel bad for enjoying each one. One of my guilty pleasures had to be about Queen because I have a frightening addiction to this band. I was torn between talking about my Queen record collection, my multiple Queen t-shirts, or my playlist of Queen songs that is seventeen hours long, but I think the bootlegs functioned the best as a guilty pleasure.

            I think this post was just an exercise in self-indulgence for me. I had a lot of fun thinking of which of my pastimes I could classify as a guilty pleasure, and I love the idea of sharing guilty pleasures with others so we can all feel more comfortable with our own interests. We are trained by society to feel ashamed of the things we are enthusiastic about, but after reading Phoebe Robinson’s chapter on guilty pleasures in You Can’t Touch My Hair, I’ve been rethinking my relationship with my guilty pleasures. Robinson wrote, “I’m not going to feel weird or embarrassed about [my guilty pleasures] and neither should you about the things you love” (77), allowing me to present my not-so-guilty pleasures for society’s inspection with confidence.

Week 5: Confidence and Self-Image

The authors we have read thus far have been remarkably candid and open with their readers. Fey, Poehler, and Kaling have a confident, self-assured voice in their writing, but Phoebe Robinson’s confidence and openness is far above whatever scale you could put Fey, Poehler, and Kaling’s confident writing on. Robinson’s complete confidence in herself has made me think about my utter lack of confidence in myself. I want to use this post as an opportunity to present my ideas on self-image, even though this would disrupt the pattern—strict analysis with minimal personal reflection—that my previous posts created.

I’ve struggled with my self-image since I was nine years old. In third grade, I loved wearing vibrant, stylish outfits that, at nine, I thought reflected my vibrant personality. I stopped wearing fun and colorful outfits soon after a boy in my class called me fat in a creative way. This boy looked me up and down, put an inflated Ziploc bag under his shirt, and said, “Look! I’m Vivienne!”, mocking the way my chubby stomach created a bulge in my yellow, plaid shirt. To make a long story short, I never wore that shirt again and I became hyper-conscious about how my body looked. I had never even thought about my appearance in that way before, but because of one boy’s stupid comment, I stopped wearing my favorite shirts, and went to school every day wearing an oversized hoodie or sweatshirt so that I could hide my body as much as possible.

Because of one boy’s comment, I decided that the best thing I could do to survive school was blend in. Wear gray hoodies that make you barely distinguishable from the walls, and hide all of your personality so that you become just one more of so many conforming students. In elementary school, I educated myself on calories, and carbs, and dieting plans so that I could achieve the body that all of the popular girls had. Your body image is an inherent part of your self-image. If you have no confidence in your body image, then you have little to no confidence in other areas. I was ashamed of my body, therefore I was also ashamed of my overall personality. I suppressed all of my passion and enthusiasm so that I was as interesting and noteworthy as a brick wall. I didn’t want to give anyone the opportunity to notice me or make fun of me again.

My experience is not unique or exceptional. Everyone, no matter what race, gender, or sexuality, struggles with their self-image at some point. Why is that? We are not born nitpicking ourselves, yet we grow to critique every aspect of our identity and appearance. We are taught from a young age that physical appearance is one of the most important parts of life on Earth. Women especially have this message drilled into their heads. If you’re not physically attractive, society tells women, then you must change yourself in order to reach that goal. Additionally, if you feel as though your interests don’t match the interests of your peer group, you feel pressure to dim your non-conforming passions.  Since that initial wound in third grade, I’ve had to fight to sustain a positive self-image and a semblance of confidence. Phoebe Robinson discusses her journey to a positive self-image in her book, You Can’t Touch My Hair.  Robinson is able to love and respect herself even with all of the negative things that society tells her about herself. If she can face daily racism and sexism and have the strength to be confident in who she is, then I can work to improve my own self-image.