If I were to ask you to define, to visualize, what an intelligent, capable woman might look like, what would picture? Would you imagine the member of the National Honors Society or the captain of the cheerleading team? Is she the girl in the sweater-vest or the girl in the low-cut, see-through tank top? What is the scholarly woman living in your mind saying, who are they hanging out with, where do they work, what is their sex life like, what are they wearing? Unfortunately, I am sure a lot of us might answer in the same way, that these mental pictures of the successful female include images of modest, responsible, sexually inactive women in high neckline business casual.
I don’t blame you. We have all been silent judgers, categorizing the people around us into groups: the scholars, the jocks, the sluts, the wallflowers, we’ve all done it. It’s our natural instinct to make snap judgments at a glance—whether we want to or not.
We look at the girl in the low cut shirt, tight skirt, and think, “pretty, but probably not smart.” Immediately after, we look at the girl walking next to her, the one in the knee length dress and neckline up to her collarbone, and have a completely different set of expectations for her.
But why is this?
Why have we been programmed to believe that the female successes of our world could never come in a package wrapped in a crop top? Have being sexual and being intelligent become mutually exclusive? Must we sacrifice our beauty, our sexuality, to be taken seriously?
I would hate to think that my fashion choices would compromise the way I wanted to be treated in this world. That my love for crop tops would come at the cost of making bad first impressions and being shoved into the “unintelligent” category. Some days, I just wake up and put on a revealing shirt, not because my confidence depends on it, not because I have nothing else to offer, but simply because my tits look good. This does not change the fact that I am your math tutor; my short skirt does not detract from my 4.0 GPA.
I am in no way a victim—I am just as guilty as the rest of you. I have been surprised, nearly startled, when the “pretty girls” in my classes have spoken up, speaking with eloquence and acing the exams. It’s as if we all subconsciously believe that the possibility of a woman being both beautiful and educated, is too small to fathom. Or maybe, it’s because we don’t want to accept that a woman could be the entire package. We tell them, pick your team—pretty or smart, you don’t get both.
The same principle applies in terms of sexual activity. No one ever seems to think that one could have an active sex life, be sexual expressive, or be anything of the sort and still be able to thrive in the business world. Women who are successful couldn’t possibly have one night stands or more than one sexual partner at a time, that’s just absurd. Since when is our intelligence dependent on our bedroom activities? Might it be possible for the ivy League college student to put on a crop top and sleep with the strange guy at the bar? Do her sexual shenanigans make her unworthy of her esteemed intellectual status?
I can only hope that one day, a woman will be able to exist as a sexual being, a being with confidence in their own body, and their own decisions, all while simultaneously living as an intelligent, powerful, and capable force in our society. There might be a day where big boobs and blonde hair can coexist in harmony with 4.0 GPAs and impressive resumes. People may even wake up and realize that the key to going from an A- to an A is not wearing a higher neckline.