Women Aren’t as Insecure as People Would Like Us to Be
Oftentimes, we aren’t insecure because we believe in unachievable standards. We’re furious that we have to keep up with them anyway.
Self-doubt. Negative body image. Insecurity.
No matter how you slice it, the way in which women view ourselves always seems to be a hot-button topic, particularly in popular understandings of feminism. Whether it’s a campaign to get more women working in engineering or a think piece on beauty filters, the message is clear — us women need a good dose of empowerment.
This message is so prevalent, in fact, that when I had one of my occasional breakdowns about how I can never do anything well enough to count as a Proper Person (I’m in my twenties, you get it) the first thing I thought was that I have just got to become more confident. How can anybody see my worth if I don’t see it myself?
But something about this sentiment didn’t quite feel right to me, and not just because it sounded like the blurb of a self-help book from the airport. I felt a profound sense of unfairness because, like most women, I know that the impossible standards I was holding myself to weren’t even my idea in the first place.
The actual issue, I realised, wasn’t that I truly believed I had to be constantly desirable in order to have worth. It was that I know how much of a woman’s societal value hinges on her appearance. I don’t genuinely think that my capacity for emotion is a flaw, but I know that women are only praised for their sensitivity when it is endearing to others. In short — I know what the rules are and I know when I am breaking them.
Take being sensitive, for example. I have learned over the years that this is allowed when it’s cute and charming, but not when I actually inconvenience people by getting upset. Similarly, it’s down-to-earth for me not to wear makeup, but only when I’ve made sure to keep up with my skincare routine. Being smart is impressive as long as I never act like I think I’m intelligent. And I can, on occasion, want things (providing it doesn’t conflict with what anyone else wants), but I’m never supposed to actually need anything.
It seems to me that this is what we miss in a lot of female empowerment narratives. Societal pressures are often acknowledged as an issue, but only in regards to our own self-image — and yet the frustration women feel often has very little to do with ourselves at all.
We can practice self-love until we’re experts, but the condescending men in our seminars will still get credit for regurgitating our ideas as their own. All the empowerment campaigns in the world can’t fix the fact that if we don’t spend half our morning and more money than I’d like to think about on makeup, then we risk being perceived as unprofessional in the workplace.
When women are frustrated by these impossible rules, the reassurance that we’re good enough can make you want to scream, I KNOW THAT ALREADY. DO ME A FAVOUR AND TELL EVERYONE ELSE. (although maybe the screaming part is just me). Oftentimes, we aren’t insecure because we believe in unachievable standards. We’re furious that we have to keep up with them anyway.
Even when, like me, you are surrounded by people who see you as the person you are instead of the woman you should be, you’ve still been raised with these rules your entire life, and you still have to interact with a world that is less kind. There are actual, material consequences to failing at the Sisyphean task of being a “good woman”. But somehow, in 2022 we are still being told that frustration with this is a personal issue, to be fixed internally by positive affirmations and wellness exercises.
There are a few reasons for this, but the largest one is perhaps the simplest: because it’s easier. Most of us don’t really feel that we’re in a position to overcome the ever-looming institution of misogyny. The idea that issues like this one are individual can be comforting in a way, because if the problem comes from within us then we hold the key to a solution. In such an individualised society, organising against systemic injustice is lengthy, daunting, and likely to make one more frustrated than we already are.
The same problem often crops up with talk therapies — what are our healthcare providers supposed to do when our anxiety is a natural result of a climate crisis and a rise in fascist ideology? How do you therapise a person out of the depression that comes from working 48 hours a week and still being unable to afford heating?
Another reason is that, like many societal issues, this individualisation of women’s pain quietly benefits corporations. If women are unhappy because we don’t believe in ourselves enough, that’s a ready-made market in which to sell self-help courses, calming crystals and blemish-erasing concealer (not that you need it, they insist, but don’t you want to feel confident?).
But if we’re unhappy because of a system that is designed to make us so, then we might start wondering who that system benefits. It’s no wonder that the companies demanding our time and money would want to avoid that question.
All of this isn’t to say that insecurity isn’t an issue. Nor am I claiming that it doesn’t affect women more than men — a lot of our biases are unconscious, of course, and misogyny is adept at creeping into the back of our minds without us noticing. But in the modern world, many women are aware of how unfair the expectations set out for us are, and at times the awareness itself is the cause of our ire.
It is, of course, useful to keep in mind that our worth is not attached to how we meet these expectations. But it is also necessary for us to surround ourselves with people we trust not to hold us to them. Societal change is possible, even in tiny increments. The first step is to acknowledge that these problems are communal, and we can only solve them when we act as a community.
