Mirror Rant

This article is wonderful.

I am so fascinated about the many shifts feminism takes.  There are so many varieties, and each kind tends to look down upon the others.  Some are essentialist; embracing what they believe are the fundamental differences between a man and a woman.  Embracing sexuality; pulling a Yankee Doodle on things that are supposed to be signs of our submission: high heels rising above the misogyny, lip sticked confidence, push up bras of defiance. 

Others eschew these things.  Separate is not equal. They are traps, making women entangled in a mess of man's desires; the things marketed to us are for their enjoyment and we've been trained to think we enjoy them to.  Heels so we can't run; lip stick to hide natural imperfections; push-up straight jackets molding us into what they want us to be.

How should we get our rights?  Are we trying to crack the glass ceiling or just Windexing it so it's so transparent you don't know it's there until you  bump into it?

I'm an educated, middle class female.  Like the article says, I'm supposed to know better.  I am not supposed to be trapped in my own reflection, feeling inadequate by some standards with origins as hazy and messy as my eyeliner at the end of the day, eyeliner I don't even know why I'm buying and applying. I give my money to Almay while simultaneously hating the way they advertise to me; I hate it because it works.

I'm not supposed to care about silly things like how my hair puffs in the humidity, subconsciously always smoothing it down in vain, while my other hand clutches a Jane Austen novel. Jane is writing so long ago not to be banal, to rise above the limited expectations.  And even though I don't need a rich suitor, in the back of mind, it's always there: time is ticking, you are running out, not to find a match is to be a failure.  Lizzie Bennett had her wit and her Darcy, and what do I have?

I have my feminist idols and their quotes to make me justify my insecurity.  My insecurity invalidates my ideology.  Is my ideology too ideal?   Virginia Woolf drowned herself; Sylvia Plath asphyxiated herself. Why am I looking to women who clearly don't know the answers? Liz Lemon is not particularly happy with her life.  Jane Austen died alone.

It's hard to tow the line between what is real and what is only scholarly.  I live so much in the books that I forget they don't always apply to real life.  They're just ideal ideologies, no one can hope to achieve.  I must know that because the phrase so captures my imagination, feels so accurate to describe the push and pull always in my mind.  The strengths of my brain fighting the failures of my body, each trying to reconcile the other.  It will never happen.

But I must believe that it will so I can keep looking forward.  Smashing the mirror means seven years bad luck, but a lifetime of looking to it for validation is no better.