This was an incredibly coherent description of an experience I’ve been having watching my daughters grow up. I’ve been at a loss for how to both support their empowerment while also checking their thoughts against my thoughts of “how the world works” (though I like your verbiage around unseen forces better than my “how the world works” idea). Thanks for putting this together.
I’m so so glad it resonates with you — a mother of daughters. So many of us are looking for the language or the fine line we need to support their empowerment and optimism and also show them the world is fucked up and manipulating them. Tough line to walk!
This is why I didn't have children. I couldn't handle it. I know what the right thing is, but I'm afraid. Not only would my peers be instructing and judging me on parenting, I'd have to do it under the watchful eye of social media. When my daughter walked out with Juicy across the little of her ass that was covered, I'd stroke out. The young women at the University where I teach screenwriting classes happens to be in LA which provides the ideal climate for baring flesh. Two instances come to mind, the young bra-less women had enormous breasts, and exposed virtually all but their nipples. As their professor, I was constantly distracted and felt uncomfortable with a set of gigantic boobs perched atop the table the class is seated around. What made it weirder is that in both instances, the young women had experienced sexual assault. Feminism gives us freedom to wear whatever you want, but we need young women to understand it's about much more than fashion. Let's not have create generations of Kardashians coopting feminism.
This is brilliant and I'd like to have a loong conversation with you about all of this. I've been working on an essay about how I'd like my 10 year-old daughter to learn to talk to herself differently than I did growing up, about how I want her to be able to give herself the love/admiration she may crave from others. I wrote something about how she could look herself in the mirror and tell herself she looked cute without waiting for some boy to say it. All the baby boomer lesbian feminists in my writing group were like, "Nooooo!!! You can't write that!" 🤣 They seemed morally offended by my use of the word "cute." Reading your post I'm like, yes, on the one hand I see that objectifying yourself using the standards of the patriarchal male gaze is not ideal. On the other hand, she's 10. Her highest compliment at the moment is for something or someone to be "Cute!" The conversation about "why we think we want what we think we want" will be long, and winding I know! Love being able to learn here!
Cute these days is big among college women trying to defang their sexuality but I don’t see why a 10 year old shouldn’t be cute or feel cute. I guess what we really want though is for our girls to focus on what their bodies can do and on their hearts and minds because EVERYONE else is focusing on their appearance. But of course we can’t pretend liking or at least accepting how we look isnt important. These days if a girl likes how she looks on her own terms it’s revolutionary. Thanks for your thoughts. I’m glad we found each other!
I've seen some recent writings from Virginia at Burnt Toast, I think, that encouraged me to question things like, what do I mean when I tell myself something is flattering... I generally mean, it makes me feel like my body is smaller in my "problem areas" so I guess I'm saying, keep in mind that "liking how you look on your own terms" may mean investigating what your terms are.... Just a thought . https://virginiasolesmith.substack.com/
This was an incredibly coherent description of an experience I’ve been having watching my daughters grow up. I’ve been at a loss for how to both support their empowerment while also checking their thoughts against my thoughts of “how the world works” (though I like your verbiage around unseen forces better than my “how the world works” idea). Thanks for putting this together.
I’m so so glad it resonates with you — a mother of daughters. So many of us are looking for the language or the fine line we need to support their empowerment and optimism and also show them the world is fucked up and manipulating them. Tough line to walk!
This is why I didn't have children. I couldn't handle it. I know what the right thing is, but I'm afraid. Not only would my peers be instructing and judging me on parenting, I'd have to do it under the watchful eye of social media. When my daughter walked out with Juicy across the little of her ass that was covered, I'd stroke out. The young women at the University where I teach screenwriting classes happens to be in LA which provides the ideal climate for baring flesh. Two instances come to mind, the young bra-less women had enormous breasts, and exposed virtually all but their nipples. As their professor, I was constantly distracted and felt uncomfortable with a set of gigantic boobs perched atop the table the class is seated around. What made it weirder is that in both instances, the young women had experienced sexual assault. Feminism gives us freedom to wear whatever you want, but we need young women to understand it's about much more than fashion. Let's not have create generations of Kardashians coopting feminism.
This is brilliant and I'd like to have a loong conversation with you about all of this. I've been working on an essay about how I'd like my 10 year-old daughter to learn to talk to herself differently than I did growing up, about how I want her to be able to give herself the love/admiration she may crave from others. I wrote something about how she could look herself in the mirror and tell herself she looked cute without waiting for some boy to say it. All the baby boomer lesbian feminists in my writing group were like, "Nooooo!!! You can't write that!" 🤣 They seemed morally offended by my use of the word "cute." Reading your post I'm like, yes, on the one hand I see that objectifying yourself using the standards of the patriarchal male gaze is not ideal. On the other hand, she's 10. Her highest compliment at the moment is for something or someone to be "Cute!" The conversation about "why we think we want what we think we want" will be long, and winding I know! Love being able to learn here!
Cute these days is big among college women trying to defang their sexuality but I don’t see why a 10 year old shouldn’t be cute or feel cute. I guess what we really want though is for our girls to focus on what their bodies can do and on their hearts and minds because EVERYONE else is focusing on their appearance. But of course we can’t pretend liking or at least accepting how we look isnt important. These days if a girl likes how she looks on her own terms it’s revolutionary. Thanks for your thoughts. I’m glad we found each other!
Me too! And yes, I think that “liking how you look on your own terms” is exactly what I was getting at.
I've seen some recent writings from Virginia at Burnt Toast, I think, that encouraged me to question things like, what do I mean when I tell myself something is flattering... I generally mean, it makes me feel like my body is smaller in my "problem areas" so I guess I'm saying, keep in mind that "liking how you look on your own terms" may mean investigating what your terms are.... Just a thought . https://virginiasolesmith.substack.com/
Absolutely!! Great point. I write a lot about internalized misogyny. Thanks Sarah.
Brilliant piece! I’ll be sharing it with some of the parents in my practice.
Also, I feel totally called out on self-objectification. Thank you 🙏🏼
Self-objectification, that’s it! You’ve expressed so eloquently this murky feeling I’ve had about ‘feminism’ in the digital age.
I'm glad it resonated (and also not glad --would be nice if we didn't need words for it). Thanks so much for reading and commenting Ginny!