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| Too many flipping princesses. |
But sometimes I just can't believe what we're letting us get away with.
Women's Lib was forty years ago, and I just saw a teenage girl wearing a t-shirt that read (I kid you not): I'M TOO CUTE TO DO MATH.
Who bought this for her? Her father? Did he think it was sweet? Did he think he was telling her how beautiful he thought she was? Did her boyfriend by it for her? Was it some kind of in joke because she was blond?? God forbid -- did she buy it for herself?
Would a boy wear a shirt like that? I bet not. Would someone buy it for him? Not bloody likely.
For some reason, society thinks it's still okay to belittle women, belittle their brains and belittle their accomplishments. And it's worse today than it was thirty years ago. I wasted fifteen minutes of my life in front of the remake of 'Charlie's Angels' last night. I watched the original series when it was on in the 70's, and let me tell you, the original was not nearly so offensive as the remake was.
Women have been fighting for generations for their voices to be heard. Right now, women are fighting for the right to an education, to have say over their bodies; they are fighting for the right to live without fear.
And here was this teenage girl, advertising that everything ever said about what she couldn't do was true.
I know she didn't see it that way, any more than I did when I was her age. I hope that when she got home her mother looked at her, and told her there was so much more to be than 'cute'; there was everything our great-grandmothers and grandmothers hoped for, and then some.
photo credit: kevin dooley via photopin cc
I remember seeing- in a sense- that Charlie's Angels. Not really seeing it, though... it was on a bus trip, and most of the time I was so annoyed by it that I was looking out the window wanting the bloody thing to end.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine why that girl would want to wear that in the first place. Lack of self respect?
William, she was so young I honestly don't think she saw it as a problem. She probably thought it was a compliment on her looks, rather than a buy in to the 'patriarchy' (an over-simplified term, I know, but you get what I mean).
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