Shy Girl Speaks

I think it's a travesty that there are a number of people who believe that feminism is all about women fighting for equal pay, joining the military, and enjoying sports. Recently I read the book, "Click" and it made me realize a huge part of who I am.

Several weeks ago a catalog for childrens toys came in the mail and I perused through it. On one page there were playsets one of which included a vacuum cleaner and other things for a child to play "house" with. Another playset included a workbench with a pretend hammer and saw. I noticed immediately the genders of the children who were the models for these  playsets - a little boy at the workbench and a little girl vacuuming. I immediately thought, "why does it have to be a girl with the vacuum?" This was probably the click moment for me. The moment I realized, "why did I notice this?"

Throughout my life, I admittedly saw feminists as a group of women that wanted to do manly things. I definitely felt there were a lot of points in feminism I agreed with but there were some I just didn't. I didn't want to join the military, I wasn't interested in sports, or beer, or whatever stereotypical things "men" do. These were things feminists HAD to be into, right? So instead of looking into some of the things that feminism IS actually about, I continued to feel left out - stuck between genders so to speak. I had short hair growing up, listened to angry girl music, and wore combat boots. On the other hand, I loved to collect "pretty" rocks, played with barbies until I was 12, and enjoyed crafts. I was too outspoken for girls my age and wasn't interested in collecting pictures of JTT or Devon Sawa from Tiger Beat/16/etc. However, it was apparent from my skill that sports were of no interest to me. I grew up being picked on but, looking back, I really was an odd duck.

Later I married a man, and looking back it wasn't my best decision to marry this individual, but there was a point where I really felt I loved this person. There was a part of him that thought I should be stereotypically feminist, but in a rather misogynistic way. For example, he refused to let me change my last name to his. I wanted to. I wanted to be a part of his family and I wanted him to feel welcome in my family as loopy as my bunch is. Anyway this was hurtful to me. I wasn't "feminist" enough for him. He would also say insensitive things to me, especially in the first part of our relationship... He hated how I was offended by these hurtful things. Later I found that if he said something insensitive to me and I dished it back out, he would actually be happy. I did not enjoy this game, but the relationship improved highly after this. In the latter part of the marriage, I did what Vashti would not do for Mordechai... around a campfire for my husband and his drunken friends. Although I was not the only one who partook in this, I was appalled, humiliated, and quickly became extremely depressed. What was already a poorly constructed relationship crumbled at an astounding rate and I filed for divorced a few months later. I spent much of my time after this trying to figure out who I was again.
I'm a woman with feelings, oh yes, I have feelings. But by today's standards in gender -- I'm middle of the road, but with the huge gap, its lonely here.

I have joined my first meetup, Chicagoland Feminists, and it will be nice to meet some people with similar views. Anyway, I will go to my first meeting in November which is a book club meeting so I've got to get a hold of the book for sure. The book for the meetup is called "Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists." Hopefully this group and the book will help with some self-esteem issues I've been having lately.

I had been telling a friend for some time that his negative views on himself were very, well, one-sided. They were his view only and I doubt anyone really sees him the way he sees himself. However, I have a story about myself that kind of shows how this type of thinking works and how it is WRONG.

Over the past two weeks, my skin has been horribly broken out. My guess is that it's a combination of using the wrong facial cleanser, hormones, and stress. Anyhow, I've been on a work leave during these two weeks. Today (errr technically yesterday) was my first day back on the job. I was feeling pretty horrible about my skin especially since all the spots are the brightest red a spot could be.

Other than the skin thing, I was thrilled to be back at work. It was great to see humanity again and people I knew. Also, shortly after starting at work I had to play this quiz game and won a hat from it. They are pretty much the ONLY hats that employees are allowed to wear at work and few employees have one, so it was nice to get that.

It also felt really good to talk with customers and I was just generally really happy to be there. I must have been projecting this happiness outwardly quite a bit as three customers said something to me today. The first customer probably amused me the most. I made a point to remember this because, as it was kind of odd, it made me feel REALLY good. When he got to the line he said something about my smile and then said, "And you're pretty. Very pretty. Your boyfriend should hold onto you. You got a lot to play with. Don't play too hard."

Yeah, I said it was strange, but it DID make me feel really good. Shortly after that another customer comes to the line and he said that I had a great smile. I just smiled at him and continued to work while I talked. He then said, "And a great personality to match!" And jokingly I said, "You should tell my manager!" And he said, "Where is he?" I then, of course, told him I was kidding. After the comment from the first customer and then this comment which came within minutes of the other customer, I was feeling pretty stellar.

As it was my first day back, they were unsure of my ability to work so they'd hired extra help. Because of this, they didn't particularly need me to come in today. Thus, I didn't have to cashier, but did extra things such as sweeping the vestibule and covering breaks. After lunch I asked the manager if I could push carts. The weather was nice for the first time and I'd not spent any significant time outside in a long time. By this time I'd received my hat and was feeling good from those two comments. While I was out getting carts, two men in white shirts were walking into the store and one shouts to me, "You're beautiful." I replied with a simple thank you. The other man scolded him with something like, "You can't say that stuff to people." To which he replied, "Well! She is!" This last comment made me feel like really awesome.

So, I obviously don't think I'm wonderfully beautiful or anything. I think smiling, though, may have something to do with it. I think everyone looks at themselves in such an incredible harshness. There are times that you should just feel comfortable in your own skin. I think when you do that, when you start feeling good... you start projecting those good feelings onto others.

I couldn't think of a better title for this, but it represents the topic of the post sufficiently. (Lol, it's 9 AM and I'm up and blogging and not really sure why!)

On Tuesday, I had ballet and pre-pointe. It'll be a long time until I ever step foot into pointe shoes, but the new teacher was really cool. I never took criticism as well as I did in my this class and he's not afraid to give it, so I'm trying to really study how he does this so I can figure that aspect of myself out a little better. He told me I could be a really good ballet dancer in 50 years. The first thing he said to me was, "You've never taken a day of ballet in your life, have you?"

Usually I would take these words to heart and it would be terrible, but for some reason I took it REALLY well. I mean, when he said these things he would be half joking, but it's totally me to take it to heart anyway. I just never take things well and this was a moment in my life where I wasn't doing something right, got criticism and took it well.

Maybe it was because he promised I would get better or because the other girls were so nice. He also told me not to give up and that it just takes time. This still baffles me, though, how I was able to take this so well. In most cases where I receive criticism, I would be hurt but pretend it was okay. If this had bothered me instead of empowered me I would have hacked it for the remainder of the class and then just stopped going. This is how work has always been for me. I do great until I receive criticism and then I get hurt. Every job I had, the main reason I quit is because I couldn't take criticism but used other reasons as excuses. Hopefully how I took criticism at ballet is a show of how well I am doing versus how well the instructor dished out the criticism.