PT.2: Why and How We Oppress Ourselves
We are all being subliminally damaged. We don’t challenge the world that we live in as much as we should or as much as we can. We are taught in grade schools, children tv shows, by our relatives that we are supposed to follow this role that we are automatically put into because we are born a specific way. If you are a girl, you are supposed to act like a girl, speak (be silent) like a girl, dress like a girl, like things that girls are supposed to like. You are a girl, a woman; you are supposed to do what girls and woman are supposed to do. If you are even slightly different, if you are even slightly lacking femininity, if you challenge the role that you are given, you are not a good girl or woman.
In high school I was under the impression that I would someday conquer the world and I wanted too, I really did. I had my heart set out on it and I felt empowered by the idea of it. Along the way I heard many different attacks from people, who told me that I couldn’t because I was a woman and women don’t conquer the world. Women raise children, women stay home, and women find caretaking jobs. Women don’t conquer anything, women are supposed to be silent and obedient. And I wanted none of that.
I was raised alongside the concept of independence. My mother told me that I could do anything and that I didn’t need anyone to do what I wanted to do, not even a man. She empowered me and I went through life feeling empowered and it was always so earth shattering to me when people would throw misogynistic, sexist ideals at me.
I started to believe that I couldn’t do anything. Children are impressionable. We are constantly being bombarded with misogyny, sexism and patriarchy as young girls and we are taught early on that our ideas and goals aren’t important. We are taught early on that boys are stronger than us, they are dominant, they can be doctors, lawyers, soldiers and we can be teachers, nurses and hairstylists. We are of course, the gentler of the genders. We’re emotional and sometimes even emotionally unstable. We are hyper sexualized, women are objects and that is portrayed in magazines, on tv shows, in movies and on advertisements. When a young girl sees a woman on a magazine cover, she is looking at what our patriarchal society wants her to look like in the near future.
Girls starve themselves because of those pictures, girls harm themselves because of those pictures, girls hate themselves because of those pictures. Girls harm other girls because of those pictures and these roles. We oppress ourselves, restrain ourselves, because society has force fed us these ideals from the moment we were able to understand them and THAT’S pretty shitty.
That was the WHY.
This is the HOW:
- We oppress ourselves by believing that we are supposed to be perfect like photo shopped women in magazines.
- We oppress ourselves by believing that we don’t matter.
- We oppress ourselves by believing that we aren’t/ can’t be dominant.
- We oppress ourselves by quitting on our hopes and dreams because they aren’t “feminine/ womanly”.
- We oppress ourselves by being silent.
- We oppress ourselves by allowing ourselves to be objectified.
- We oppress ourselves by teaching children the same sexist, misogynistic, patriarchal beliefs that we were taught.
- We oppress ourselves by not allowing ourselves to be who we want to be.