I’m A Fucking Lady
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I have never felt like a “lady”.
I curse. I argue. I don’t know how to cook. I’m loud. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork. I slouch. I trip on my own two feet. I don’t know how to properly dance. I don’t want kids.
I grew up feeling like it was a burden to be a female. I watched as my athletically gifted brother was arguably given an easier time in life because he was both athletic and a man. I watched most, if not all, of the household tasks fall on my mother’s shoulders. I heard the shaming of my older sister for wearing too short of a skirt out of the house. What a burden, it seemed, life had dealt me when I was born a woman.
When I got my period for the first time in the fifth grade — before any of my girlfriends — I felt even more burdened by womanhood. I was only 12 and having to live with debilitating cramps, the fear of bleeding through my pants, and the shame that society places on women’s shoulders that we need to hide feminine products from sight.
I entered middle school at the height of the rise of social media. MySpace was a temple for those my age; we all dove headfirst into a realm of complete self-indulgence. Our pictures needed attention, our pages needed attention, our Top 8 held more weight than actual friendships, and our friends count had to be high. MySpace opened doors for me to begin critiquing myself against others and their online presence. I spent a lot of time obsessing over other girls online — their impossibly perfect bodies, blemish-free faces, perfect photos. Girls my age are the generation of the social media facade. Somebody out there will always appear to be perfect and it will work to dull our own internal shine.
For a very long time I believed that it doesn’t matter what kind of confidence a woman has, she will always be made to feel like less than she is. The companies peddling weight loss products, skincare lines, shapewear, razors, makeup, clothing, and even food will always go out of their way to touch on our biggest insecurities in their ads.
We are always left asking ourselves:
Am I less of a lady because I don’t have a three step skincare routine?
Am I less of a lady because I don’t shave every single day?
Am I less of a lady because I don’t know how to contour my face?
Am I less of a lady because my stomach folds when I sit down?
Am I less of a lady because I enjoy eating a burger and fries more than I do a naked salad?
The burden of being a woman stayed with me for a very long time. I can’t recall any rumors about the guys in my high school but I can provide a list of every incorrect rumor that went around about me. I can’t recall any of the guys in my high school being called a slut for sleeping with girls but I can sure as hell tell you about all of the girls in my class being shamed for their sexuality. I secretly envied the guys simply for being born the opposite sex and somehow finding themselves exempt from all of the viciousness of high school.
What a burden being a woman was whenever I found myself in a situation wherein a man thought that he was owed sex. Do men experience this from women? I know now that the door swings both ways… but I didn’t know it then, thus feeling burdened by the fact that, because I had a vagina and breasts, I owed men more than I wanted to give.
It’s not just men that have made me feel burdened by my being a woman. When I started getting tattoos in my teen years I was told point blank by older women that my tattoos were “not ladylike” — they urged me to wear long sleeves in public. I was grasping at anything that could become a form of self expression and I was being criticized for it simply because I’m a woman. My tattoos have proven to be “offensive” to a lot of people… I spent years as a waitress being given glares and cold shoulders if I wore a t-shirt while, at the same time, my male coworkers were treated with respect despite their visible tattoos.
Let’s not forget the endless pushing and prodding from men and women alike when they find out that I don’t want children. I am constantly made to feel like I am simply “immature” and will eventually “grow up” and realize that I am meant to be a mother. The burden of this, the gnawing frustration that comes with being a woman who doesn’t want kids, is that my cisgender male partner doesn’t want children either and he has never been given a single lecture about his immaturity towards parenthood.
Everything boils down to society. Society made people afraid of loud, tattooed, bleeding women.
Where was the American Girl book about strong women in the series of “growing up” books that I read as a kid? Where was the positive media attention on the actresses who didn’t give a shit — the ones who refused to starve for three weeks to fit into a red carpet gown, opting for a pantsuit instead? Where were the outspoken women on television telling us young girls that it’s okay to push the boundaries? My generation, and all of the generations before mine, were subjected to such a bullshit standard of what being a woman means.
I am so grateful for the climate that I live in today. The curtain has been drawn and there is now a world of women ready to make change. I have no memory of women being this outspoken publicly about the standards to which we want to live. We’re throwing our middle fingers up to the patriarchy and anybody or anything who wants us to feel burdened because we’re women.
