the thing is…i’m a womanist. i ascribe to alice walker’s definition of that vs. feminist but i’ll tackle that later. the point is, my womanness is an important part of my identity. like being black or american…and there are things that unsettle me as a result.
things like how we are depicted…how we depict ourselves.
today i went out with friends and sex in the city was the agreed upon destination. by and large i enjoy the show…it is always good for a few laughs and about 30 minutes of escape.
maybe it was the length – two hours instead of half of one – but i was irritated halfway through. disgusted at the reduction of women to our archetypal place. damsel with prince come rescue me waiting in the wings. and if prince leaves well…it not only means you did something wrong it also means you are less than whole.
i can’t get on board with that. i can’t encourage that for anyone coming up behind me who happens to mirror my reproductive organs. life and love are hard enough without believing the hype…believing that all is not lost as long as there is a diamond ring falling from your silver lining.
and so it is that i have such venom for hillary clinton. the uber woman. the champion for the american woman – once. before succumbing to an “emotional moment” in new hamshire. going into the damsel artillery, the very thing people use as rationale for not wanting a woman president…”look how emotional we are”. (‘but at least she stood by her man…”)
and the list of her ills is long and varied but her original sin, for me, was compromising who she is…who she has consistently shown herself to be. a hard ass. a smart, aggressive, confident hard ass.
and people argue that she was contorted into that shape and the tender moment was her true self coming through…its all the same to me, a false front.
maybe my deeper anger at hillary is that i was counting on her to balance the scales from all the fluffy pink incarnations of woman i see everywhere. and even though i don’t think i’m the hard ass she was i’m not pink either, and her being her and those others being them made it a little easier for me to be me. a little easier to not have to explain why i don’t wear makeup, why in a relationship i don’t believe the man is the default head of the house, why my voice is not more important but as important as my male counterparts.
i’m not sure where this rant is going…i guess i’ve changed my mind. if my choices are are limited to sex in the city or hillary clinton i think I’ll have to save my vote for a better candidate. i guess i”ll have to run my own campaign.
Tags: me-ness, movies, soapbox, socialcommentary, tv
oh hillary
the thing is…i’m a womanist. i ascribe to alice walker’s definition of that vs. feminist but i’ll tackle that later. the point is, my womanness is an important part of my identity. like being black or american…and there are things that unsettle me as a result.
things like how we are depicted…how we depict ourselves.
today i went out with friends and sex in the city was the agreed upon destination. by and large i enjoy the show…it is always good for a few laughs and about 30 minutes of escape.
maybe it was the length – two hours instead of half of one – but i was irritated halfway through. disgusted at the reduction of women to our archetypal place. damsel with prince come rescue me waiting in the wings. and if prince leaves well…it not only means you did something wrong it also means you are less than whole.
i can’t get on board with that. i can’t encourage that for anyone coming up behind me who happens to mirror my reproductive organs. life and love are hard enough without believing the hype…believing that all is not lost as long as there is a diamond ring falling from your silver lining.
and so it is that i have such venom for hillary clinton. the uber woman. the champion for the american woman – once. before succumbing to an “emotional moment” in new hamshire. going into the damsel artillery, the very thing people use as rationale for not wanting a woman president…”look how emotional we are”. (‘but at least she stood by her man…”)
and the list of her ills is long and varied but her original sin, for me, was compromising who she is…who she has consistently shown herself to be. a hard ass. a smart, aggressive, confident hard ass.
and people argue that she was contorted into that shape and the tender moment was her true self coming through…its all the same to me, a false front.
maybe my deeper anger at hillary is that i was counting on her to balance the scales from all the fluffy pink incarnations of woman i see everywhere. and even though i don’t think i’m the hard ass she was i’m not pink either, and her being her and those others being them made it a little easier for me to be me. a little easier to not have to explain why i don’t wear makeup, why in a relationship i don’t believe the man is the default head of the house, why my voice is not more important but as important as my male counterparts.
i’m not sure where this rant is going…i guess i’ve changed my mind. if my choices are are limited to sex in the city or hillary clinton i think I’ll have to save my vote for a better candidate. i guess i”ll have to run my own campaign.
Tags: me-ness, movies, soapbox, socialcommentary, tv