Being a woman is actually really easy

BEING A WOMAN IS ACTUALLY REALLY EASY

WHAT, LIKE IT’S HARD?

BY CAROLINE SMITH

You know, there’s been a lot of new-wave misogynists that have been saying that being a woman is easy. That we’re living life “on easy mode.” Which, with all due sympathy to the tortured men in the world, I would like to contest. I mean, it’s only an entire patriarchal system over society that purveys every facet of a woman’s daily life. But no, you know what, let’s hear them out and define once and for all: Is being a woman actually really easy?

I mean when we’re younger, it’s, “Can a big strong boy help me carry these chairs?” Or there’s the day when the boys all get to learn how they are going to grow big and tall and the girls are sat down to be told that they must pay for the original sin with their own bodily pain once a month, and there is nothing they can do about it. Their blood will only stop flowing when they are pregnant, run out the clock or put themselves through medical or hormonal treatments. Slowly girls are initiated into early womanhood and their bled-through pants are a marker for shame, their loss of pure youth and innocence. The effects for each vary widely. Some girls have emotional highs and lows they can’t seem to warrant, others feel sick and throw up, or they feel that invisible arrow pierced through their abdomen that cannot be pulled out. It’s not like it’s hard to explain to your 7th grade P.E. teacher that you are in too much physical pain to run the mile. He is just going to say that running will make you feel better.

But yeah, life is on “easy-mode” when it’s all nail polish, makeup and sleepovers. However, when you are in that beauty section of the store, the pink razor costs more than the blue one. The pads and tampons, the stuff you need to function for 12 weeks out of the year, cost way more than they should. Every lotion, salve, cream, conditioner, curler and product is advertised to make you beautiful and ageless. Makeup is necessary to look presentable. As a woman, beauty is necessary to be acceptable.

At our young age, we become objects. Something for men to look at, admire and want. All of a sudden we graduate from one-piece swimsuits to bikinis. Your body was once yours. The vehicle of your identity. Now it is a weapon that you must keep sheathed and learn to control. If you don’t, it could mean your own destruction. Strange men countdown to young celebrity girls’ 18th birthdays, so it can be publicly accepted to ogle them. Hey, if they date Dicaprio then they are set until their 26th birthday, right?

You watch as a bunch of female celebrities get whatever new plastic surgery trend is taking Hollywood to remain youthful as possible. There’s just a publicly accepted notion that aging in women is unwanted. A woman over forty is old news, and we move on to the next young thing to prize. Jennifer Coolidge and Michelle Yeoh are welcomed exceptions to the Hollywood Youth Vacuum, but being an exception means that the system is still too strong to overcome it. Even the youths, like Bella Ramsey, are endlessly criticized because they do not match the perfect image misogynists have imagined.

You begin to notice it, when someone like Taylor Swift is dragged for writing too many songs about her ex-boyfriends. That she must really struggle to keep them. But her contemporaries are praised when they sing about all the “bitches” they get. The double-standard is so normalized sometimes it’s hard to identify, but when you realize it’s there– it is everywhere.

Of course too, the women you see on the screen are the ones being saved, morally pure or heinously evil. The beautiful, often cis, thin, white woman is the object of desire. Too often, the exception is a monstrous villain. Her refusal to conform makes her unwanted and disdained. The man is the hero; the man can be dark and tortured. The woman ends a story either dead or married.

We notice it more when we get older too. A tragic man’s story leads to him hurting people. His emotions make him so sick and twisted and his misery is justification for violence. But a tragic woman wallows in her suffering and, almost inevitably, ends her story tragically dead.

And you know, when you are in a class, you get used to being talked over so much that you’ll stay quiet until you have something truly solid to say, if that. Meanwhile, the men in the class will happily drone on for ten minutes repeating something a woman just said. Even then, you have to be so ahead of the curve to be respected– smart and well-mannered.

Your personality, from an early age, is perfectly crafted to be performed and perceived. We must acknowledge that we are judged quickly. You do not want to be “like other girls” because that means you are susceptible to judgment for being too girly and feminine. It’s this impossible, complicated line you try to balance in order to simply function and control how you are perceived.

Your existence is also an open invitation for men to approach you with the, “You got a man?” question, and regardless of your answer, they are persistent in making an uncomfortable situation.

In relationships, the woman is the caretaker. She’s there to fix a broken man. In many women’s relationships, there’s a power imbalance. Many of us try our best to avoid the dead-ended fate of being stuck in a controlling relationship. We have all heard of or known of women who are told what to wear, who to hang out with and, of course, the entirely possible fate of being abused or victimized.

And you know, women are constantly threatened, stalked, brutalized and going missing, so much so that it’s hardly in the news and practically normalized. Women of color and queer women even more so. But it’s easy to accept that. Just carry some pepper spray with you and you can peacefully walk at night.

But actually, it is pretty easy. I do it all the time.