The average person sees over 500 adverts per day, very few of the women in those ads look like people we see on a daily basis. So maybe it's time to change the way we look at women. Why does it feel so different to see pictures of realistic of women? Why aren't we seeing women we recognise? And why wasn't I paying attention to this before? Where are the women who sweat through their femininity? Girls who build things for others who can't, mothers who want to learn from their children. When we condone airbrushed faces and photoshopped bodies, what are we saying about ourselves? That our strengths aren't strong enough? Aren't our feelings deep enough? Aren't our cheers not loud enough? If all the women in the ads look the same, what illusion are we promoting for our daughters? Maybe we should start by seeing women we can relate to.
Ladies with style who aren't afraid to share their ideas, experts who revolutionise their fields, girls who fight for our country. Let's see women doing the things that women really do. Let's appreciate the beauty of overcoming real struggles. Let's see more women like the ones we know. Who makes us laugh, who will just sit with us after a long day. Who aren't afraid of their strengths. Maybe all we need to do is look around to remember that the women in our lives carry the beauty of all kinds. And that beauty is worth seeing.
A depressing number of studies show that, unlike men, women will often dislike each other for no apparent reason. As women, who are supposed to be caring and selfless, we are quick to make negative and offending remarks of someone who could be perceived as a sexual rival. Of course, the same studies also note that men don't suffer from the same problem. So what's the really going on? Why are girls so mean to each other? We know that this happens more often than it should, then why do we just blindly accept this as a normal thing?
Women give out cynical statements, evil glares and back-handed compliments, while the guys carry on with their seemingly bottomless supply of team spirit. They have an alliance and bromance, whereas we women seem locked in an eternal Prey vs. Predator style arch-rivalry.
Think about the way guys talk, especially the way they insult each other. So many gendered insults are being thrown about. Ladies, stop calling each other "sluts" or "whores" because that makes it okay for guys to call us that. "The worse thing you can call a girl is a girl", writes Jessica Valenti, "the worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a girl is the ultimate insult". So of course, on a subconscious level, it makes sense that most women would want to be "one of the guys" when being a girl are one of the worse things one can be.
Of all insults directed at women, "slut" is probably the most common, can we agree? But in all honesty, what's so shameful about being a "slutty" anyway? Why is it so bad that she has more sexual partners than you? Competition? Or that her skirt is shorter than yours? If you were truly okay with the world then you wouldn't care so much about what women do with their bodies. The reason is quite simple. It's just like biting your nails or shaking your legs (which is the most annoying things by the way. Please stop), it's a habit. Traditionally, the only bargaining power women could ever lay on their sexuality. In most of history, women couldn't work, couldn't get an education, couldn't vote, couldn't produce art unless it was under a male alias, they could barely leave the house without a male chaperone. The list goes on... By potentially luring men away from their wives, "slutty" girls posed a real threat to a married woman's future. It's like fighting fire with fire. Nothing stirs the flames of human hatred as smooth as fear. And, therefore, girl-hate was born.
In large part, this is because as a culture we're still teaching girls that the greatest thing they have to offer is their sexuality. Every Disney princess had only one hand to play- only one thing that saved her from a tormenting life: her beauty, the thing that the prince found so irresistible. If your value as a human being is measured by where you fall on the 'hotness' scale, your incapability to befriend another woman in your life with lead you to leave a life without appreciation.
As a girl that is 14 years of age, until we can figure out how to think of ourselves as more than an object with assortments of body parts of varying degrees of attractiveness, girl-on-girl hate will remain one of the last challenges facing women today.
