Women Don’t Owe Men Their Attractiveness
It’s time to enjoy our bodies and just live our lives
Okay, I’ve got to get this one off my chest.
It’s not my duty to be attractive to men.
I hate how society pressures women to be ever auditioning, and trying to look good for men.
Women already perform so much emotional labour for men and their families in general. It’s a whole other level of exhaustion trying to look cute/sexy/hot/alluring to men.
I feel as women we are not allowed to live the full authenticity of our lives. Without unconsciously and consciously acting like show monkeys. For the approval of men.
It’s a feeling that most women can probably relate to.
As women it’s easy to start to internalise the male gaze, viewing our body parts through the warped perception of men.
We start to objectify ourselves, and even other women in our aesthetic evaluations. As that is the majority psychological lens we have become accustomed to.
This makes me sick. Most of all it makes me exhausted.
This view of women looking attractive to men is so pervasive. That when a woman goes without makeup or if she tames her fashion preferences. People will say she has let herself go.
Let herself go? For whom exactly…..For the attractive appeal of men, I say.
Perhaps she just wants a break. Perhaps she just wants to be cosy? Or perhaps she is tired of giving a f*ck?
We are all human, and have a right to be tired at times.
Trying to appeal to the aesthetic appreciation of others is simply exhausting.
I sometimes feel like a show dog. Having to hold myself in a certain way, and wear my hair and makeup in “attractive” ways. Rather than simply how I like it.
Even having to dampen my voice amongst men. To sound “feminine and soft” whatever that means? Forget all that, I’m done with it all. I just want to be free. I just want to be me.
Life is easier when you are comfortable in your own skin-Amy Dickinson
I mean the Amazonian warrior women sure weren’t soft and docile. But they were women. Women's attributes come in all nuances. The whole soft femininity thing is only one way to exist as a woman. After all, the Vikings had female shield maiden warriors.
I call BS to all this pretentious living amd female showcasing of our bodies for male pickings.
Women should be allowed to live their full freedoms, rather than invest and waste all this psycho-emotional energy parading and prancing for men.
I don’t owe men my attractiveness. No woman does.
All I want to do some days is relax into the fullness of my being. No performances are needed.
“You don’t have to be pretty. You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female.’” — Erin McKean
