Recently – okay, this morning, which is
probably about three months before you will actually get to read this – I was
lying about in bed. Because of the pandemic lockdown, as well as a
dreary-looking day, I didn’t have much reason to get up.
The result was that I had plenty of thinking
time, and as a consequence, two things came to mind: the idea of pretty,
swiftly followed by the idea of feminism.
It started when I began thinking back to a blog
I had written about dresses and why I hate to wear them. And I wondered when
the last time I did wear one was.
My sister-in-law’s wedding, probably 20 years
ago? My first trip to Wales at a posh castle-hotel 18 years ago? My brother’s
wedding 12 years ago?…
No, to my horror, probably only about 5 years
ago, on one of the river cruises Blue Scream and I took. It wasn’t for more
than an hour, and I can’t imagine why I bothered. Probably because I packed the
thing, and I like to wear everything in my suitcase at least once.
Then I remembered a friend’s comment on that
blog, and how she disagreed with my assessment. She liked wearing dresses. They
make her feel pretty.
Fair enough.
I presented my thoughts and feelings. I didn’t
expect anyone else to conform to them. In fact, I’d be worried if they did.
But pretty – there it was again.
I’ve never felt one way or another about myself
because of clothes.
Okay, I’ve felt uncomfortable in some clothes,
either because they didn’t fit properly or because they didn’t fit the occasion
for which I was wearing them.
But pretty? Ugly? Like a princess? Like a
virgin – Oh wait, that’s a song!
No, never once.
I’ve looked at clothes and thought, That’s beautiful! Or, You could not pay me enough to touch that,
much less consider wearing it.
But clothes have never transferred their beauty
to me or how I feel. I guess that’s why I’ve never been a slave to fashion.
But as far as pretty goes, I consider it a
false bill of goods women have been sold for centuries. Even though we’re no
longer seen in society as purely ornamental, we’re still expected to feel ornamental.
“Oh, but doesn’t wearing sexy underwear make
you feel sexy?”
Um, no.
Those lacy bits of butt floss that pass for
underwear and padded, wired brassieres on someone who neither needs nor wants
wiring or padding are simply uncomfortable. Even if I knew what “sexy” felt
like, I couldn’t begin to have any notion of it while wearing such
uncomfortable clothing.
Sell sexy if you like. I’m not buying it.
Which brings me to feminism.
Growing up, I always insisted I wasn’t a
feminist. My rationale was that I didn’t believe in “girls are better than
anyone.” I believed in equality. And I didn’t think feminism was about
equality, but rather, about pushing girls to the fore, above everyone else.
I didn’t like being disqualified from doing
things because I was, “just a girl.” I didn’t ask for it, so why should it be
held against me?
My mother used to frequently say, “There may be
people who aren’t as good as you, but no one’s better.”
She never said there were people better than
me. I was as good as anyone else.
(Irish mothers aren’t known for praising their children.)
Still, I did not see myself as the next Betty
Freidan.
It wasn’t until the new wave of feminists,
people like Emma Watson and Benedict Cumberbatch in the “I am a feminist” ads
that I realized, That word doesn’t mean
what you think it means.
I am
a feminist.
It isn’t about girls being better. It’s about
equality.
When I was first introduced to the word, I was
still enmeshed in being disqualified. My brother, Rob, told me I would never be
accepted to Penn State because I wasn’t smart enough – don’t even get me
started on the fact that nearly all of my high school classes were what would
now be considered AP classes. Then, when I was, in fact, accepted, he told me
it was because I was a girl, and the university was trying to get more female
students.
I proved I was as good as. But, to my mind,
that didn’t make me a feminist.
“Women’s libbers” as they were called at the
time were generally the ugly, long, unkempt hair, braless,
paisley-clothes-wearing women who carried signs and didn’t know how to use
their indoor voices.
I didn’t want to be one of those. Short hair,
three-piece-suit with a shirt and tie and Oxford shoes was more my style.
At about that time, Janis Ian’s At Seventeen
album came out. The eponymous single was the anthem of every girl from puberty
to 30. Everyone of a certain age born without a Y chromosome could identify
with the “ugly duckling girl like me” in the song, even the tall-thin-gorgeous
women who hadn’t known an ugly day from their Gerber Baby beginnings to prom queen.
Yet, even though I strongly identified with the
song, that was the only one on the entire album I never figured out the guitar
chords to. I could sing and play all of the other songs a la Janis, which, in
their own way, were feminist, but for some reason, I shied away from that one.
I suppose it was too close to the bone.
“To those of us who knew the pain /of
valentines that never came/ and those whose names were never called/ when
choosing sides for basketball…”
Maybe I wasn’t quite a feminist then.
Perhaps I was still seeking permission to be
one.
Perhaps I should spend time lazing in bed
considering things more often.
