Mediocrity. It's What's for Dinner.
Last week, a bunch of feminists came down on the Harvard President Lawrence Summers for pointing out that women didn't hold many of the jobs in higher education and scientific fields because of innate differences. I may be a feminist (a cross between 2nd and 3rd wave to be exact), a former member of NOW and former president of the Organization for the Advancement of Women in Law, but he was right on target in certain respects. (Not the reaction you were expecting, huh?)
Maybe it started for me in the fifth grade when Becky Johnson came back from summer vacation with a set of double-D's and the boys no longer wanted to just play wall ball. It was like one of those movies where everyone gets infected by bacteria that causes them to become brain-eating zombies, and I was the only person with any natural immunity. I liked boys, but I also liked wall ball and books and jumping bicycles. I liked boys for being boys, not for validating my worth as a person. I didn't dumb down like the other girls in an effort to get little Johnnie's attention. I just kept being myself.
Now, at the time, that was pretty difficult, no one wants to be the little flat-chested tomboy, but then again- no should sell themselves short either. They all wanted to be Olivia Newton-John in Spandex turning the guys’ heads, but not me. I was mad. Not only did I no longer have anything in common with my gender, but I also was without my guy friends. So I kept studying and being myself. I didn't rush out and buy a bottle of foul smelling Jean Naté or a padded bra and slowly, but surely once the initial spark of puberty subsided, the guys started to hang with me instead of Becky Johnson.
There were innate differences between the boys and girls. It was biological. They wanted to sex each other up or whatever as dictated by biology, and in that pursuit women dumbed down and men puffed out their chests. Yet sadly, some never got past that mentality. They never learned to associate self-respect and self-worth with their gender.
My grandmother still shakes her head at me every time I see her because I do not wear lipstick nor carry a pocketbook. (Grandma, it’s cumbersome and lipstick tastes and smells bad.). She thinks everything should be girly-girl and I’d prefer comfort and being myself. Sometimes that means pearls and sometimes that means sweats. And don’t even get me started on guys with that Cro-Magnon thought pattern “Me man. You woman.” There are plenty of them still around- just visit a trailer park or frat house sometime.
So long as women continue to validate themselves by the amount of drool generated by a hormonally charged man, and forego educational and political opportunities created for them by generations of women from Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul to Toni Morrison and Linda B. Buck, they will continue to have a smaller and smaller piece of the American pie in everything from earning potential, to education to justice and equality under the law. They will continue to be victims.
So long as they portray themselves as the weaker sex and flutter their eyelashes, the more likely it is that their daughters and granddaughters will have fewer and fewer opportunities for the true freedom that the leaders of the suffragette movement envisioned- self determination.
The ratification of the 19th Amendment was just a starting point. Dr. Summers in his “wisdom” just pointed that out for us again.
Maybe it started for me in the fifth grade when Becky Johnson came back from summer vacation with a set of double-D's and the boys no longer wanted to just play wall ball. It was like one of those movies where everyone gets infected by bacteria that causes them to become brain-eating zombies, and I was the only person with any natural immunity. I liked boys, but I also liked wall ball and books and jumping bicycles. I liked boys for being boys, not for validating my worth as a person. I didn't dumb down like the other girls in an effort to get little Johnnie's attention. I just kept being myself.
Now, at the time, that was pretty difficult, no one wants to be the little flat-chested tomboy, but then again- no should sell themselves short either. They all wanted to be Olivia Newton-John in Spandex turning the guys’ heads, but not me. I was mad. Not only did I no longer have anything in common with my gender, but I also was without my guy friends. So I kept studying and being myself. I didn't rush out and buy a bottle of foul smelling Jean Naté or a padded bra and slowly, but surely once the initial spark of puberty subsided, the guys started to hang with me instead of Becky Johnson.
There were innate differences between the boys and girls. It was biological. They wanted to sex each other up or whatever as dictated by biology, and in that pursuit women dumbed down and men puffed out their chests. Yet sadly, some never got past that mentality. They never learned to associate self-respect and self-worth with their gender.
My grandmother still shakes her head at me every time I see her because I do not wear lipstick nor carry a pocketbook. (Grandma, it’s cumbersome and lipstick tastes and smells bad.). She thinks everything should be girly-girl and I’d prefer comfort and being myself. Sometimes that means pearls and sometimes that means sweats. And don’t even get me started on guys with that Cro-Magnon thought pattern “Me man. You woman.” There are plenty of them still around- just visit a trailer park or frat house sometime.
So long as women continue to validate themselves by the amount of drool generated by a hormonally charged man, and forego educational and political opportunities created for them by generations of women from Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul to Toni Morrison and Linda B. Buck, they will continue to have a smaller and smaller piece of the American pie in everything from earning potential, to education to justice and equality under the law. They will continue to be victims.
So long as they portray themselves as the weaker sex and flutter their eyelashes, the more likely it is that their daughters and granddaughters will have fewer and fewer opportunities for the true freedom that the leaders of the suffragette movement envisioned- self determination.
The ratification of the 19th Amendment was just a starting point. Dr. Summers in his “wisdom” just pointed that out for us again.
posted by The Raving Badger at 11:09 AM
4 Comments:
Say, you wouldn't happen to have Becky Johnson's phone number, would you?
No idea. I bet those breasts have seen better days by now as has her self esteem.
Jeez bitch
You are freakin' dull. This is your blog and you think you're being original ?
Th reason chicks wear lipstick is because it looks great smeared over a guy's cock. We know it, you know it, and Estee Lauder knows it.
Nobody gives a shit about your self esteem. Now get out there and compete!
Oh, btw, midwest female lawyers count for about shit point two on the Richter scale here in NY. D'you have one of those chummy shingles, wood and gold etching, hanging outside your office on Main Street, Nowhere, Pop 356.
Booooooring blog.
You know- I just love you anonymous fuckers. Talk about original. Can't you come up with a "handle" or something in between jacking off to the 5 second blurry Paris Hilton clips on the Internet because you're too fucking cheap to 1) pay for soap to take a bath, 2)order a real pay-per-view porn, or 3) pay 5 dolla for suckee-suckee? (You know, your mom really should charge more) Get a life you asshat.
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