I started this blog on Monday. It's now Wednesday evening. And over the past 2 days, I've thought countless times about just deleting it altogether, and denying all evidence that it ever existed. Not only does that make me insane, and possibly ever so slightly bi-polar, it also makes me a massive hypocrite. I thought about deleting it because I temporarily lost faith in my own opinion - not in the opinion itself, I'm far too arrogant to do that, but in the publicizing of it. I even went so far as to imagine possible thoughts of anonymous readers: Oh good, another woman thinks the world is unfair, brilliant. She doesn't have a clue what she's talking about; she's a clueless, naive, sheltered little girl, fresh from the womb of university, unknowingly ignorant and thinking she has all the answers to the world's problems...
Then I got a grip on myself.
One of the points I made in my first post was that this issue isn't talked about enough, which is why it's so easy for people to brush it under the carpet; we, as a society, are not fighting hard enough to drag it back out into the cold light of day again. So, not only would I NOT be helping the cause to write one blog post about the subject then hastily delete it out of fear of only potential critics, I would also be an incredible hypocrite to stop writing about something for a pathetic personal reason, when I've already said that this issue is so much bigger than all of us. I knew it must be difficult to write about a subject that nobody else will touch; to beat your own path and be a pioneer. I never thought, however, that writing about a well-known subject (and it IS well-known, even if its gravity isn't always acknowledged) would feel just as intimidating; it comes with an ominous feeling that nothing you write will ever quite hit the mark, or be as good as what has preceded it. But the upshot of this is, if you can't trust your own opinion about a subject you're incredibly passionate about enough to share it with people, you clearly don't have enough faith in yourself. And if you don't have faith in yourself, you don't have a lot. And it's for this reason that I (wo)manned the hell up.
Another point I wanted to make was about the title of this blog. '(Wo)man up' is hardly the most original title, I agree. I chose it because I've been a 'linguist' (pffft, in the loosest sense of the word, I'd love to consider myself one though) for a number of years, and I've studied and been fascinated by the impact of sexism as both a cause and consequence of language, particularly in Romance languages that have genders, such as French and Spanish. And although English doesn't have genders in the same way that these languages do, it too has its inherent sexist undertones, which I believe serve as one of the root causes in the implicit sexism of our society today - though I digress. It's always irritated me that all the colloquial phrases to do with putting up with hard times and being strong are associated with masculinity - i.e. 'man up', 'strap on a pair', 'he must have balls to do that', 'take it like a man', etc etc. There are no equivalent phrases to do with women, as it's simply accepted now that men are the strong ones, showing a ridiculously unfounded gender bias in our supposedly gender neutral language. It hardly needs to be said, but women have proven themselves time and time again to be as strong as men, and as willing to put up with things as men - often silently, which obviously affords them no praise for this, and has resulted in masculinity edging out as being the 'stronger' gender.
'There hasn't been anything invented yet, including war, that a man would enter into, that a woman wouldn't too.' (Will Rogers)
Hence, 'woman up' - the implications of which are, be like a woman and deal with it properly. If I wanted to do a complete inversion of sexism I COULD start saying 'man up' when I really mean 'don't deal with this rationally, ignore the root cause of the problem and go hit someone; in fact, even better, start a war! Quickly!' But then I'd be adhering to stereotypes and we don't want that, do we? Fair enough, this phrase isn't as catchy, and deciding to slightly change a phrase like that for your own personal use could be akin to polishing ash trays on the Titanic. But all change starts as small change.
Another point I feel I need to clarify is that despite the apparently slightly gloomy, fatalistic, 'we're all going to die' tone of my last post (definitely not intentional), I don't want this blog to be a breeding ground for angry thoughts, or a list of negative points about men, society and the world in general. Yes, I want to draw attention to the issues, both big and small, that face women every day because I don't feel they are given enough attention or weight. But another point of this blog is also to bring to people's attention the little things, so small that they may go unnoticed, that happen every day to show me that there IS hope for equality and feminism; that this isn't a lost cause. They are definitely there, and I think an important step in the fight for equality is to assess what we already have and take stock; apart from anything else, it forces us to examine our surroundings, and to see that there is a sense of solidarity there within our actions, even if we haven't perhaps realised it yet. This blog will be about negative reflection only to the extent that it can fuel positive reaction and action.
I believe that feminism comes in countless forms in innumerable places; we just need to tune in, to learn where to look for them and to perceive them in the right way. I also believe that in addition to the fantastic feminist leaders we've come to recognise as pioneers of the cause - Gloria Steinem, Simone de Beauvoir, etc - feminists, as I said in my previous post, can come from anywhere and be anyone. Just because they're not fighting the battle on the academic front doesn't make their contribution any less valuable; in a world as diverse as ours, there are countless ways to stand up for women's rights, each as unique and important as the last.
More on that story later.
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