Monday, April 18, 2011

Anxiety of Female Fatalities

I had to present a critique today on the chapter of 'Anxiety of Authorship' in the book Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. They refuted Harold Bloom's patriarchal outlook of male authorship and related it to womens...blah blah blah.
I have been on a feminist rampage for the past couple weeks, I'm not really sure why. Possibly because my sister is acting so unlike herself since she and her boyfriend broke up, and it's really sad to watch such an independent person succumb to such a lousy level of emotion. Maybe it's because I am mad at myself for lightening up and finally liking a boy more than I had expected to. Maybe it's because I realize that I can be just as smart as the pretentious boys in my classroom.
But overall, It's because I am slowly realizing the standards people hold for women.

There is a boy at my school who makes his girlfriend read a book on how to be a housewife and is recommending it to other girls at school.

I just got kicked out of our University's formal for my dress being too short.

I'm too conservative for my friends in the city and the city itself.

I'm too liberal and independent for the Catholic community here.

I get along with everyone, yet I still feel as though I don't belong anywhere.

Why all the standards? Why do I, and women and girls in particular have to act and dress a certain way. Why must they want a housewife wearing long skirts and no makeup with a sandwich in hand here, but a sexually liberal free spirit (who must concede to them or else they are a frigid bitch) elsewhere? Where is there a medium. Why can't I just do what I want without commentary? I suppose it's like that for everyone. Judgments everywhere. And then I pressure myself. I want to be skinny, I want to be tan, I want to be blonde, I want to be smart, I want this and that and play the violins because it never ends and it gets so old.
The Anxiety of Authorship is the same for life. We don't want to put our names on anything because we feel it will never be accepted.

4 comments:

  1. "Maybe it's because I realize that I can be just as smart as the pretentious boys in my classroom."
    Hahaha

    I don't know Allie, but I feel the same way. Too conservative for the city, too liberal for the Catholics. That shit is everywhere for everyone. I know it's different for women, but damn. Don't hog all the pressure alright? Leave some for the rest of us! lol.

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  2. Hahaha. Well another thing that sucks about being a female is the stress we put on ourselves to do things for people we think they would appreciate, and then that person has a different agenda.

    I wish all women would learn to just act and be for THEMSELVES. And no one else. And then all would be well in the world.

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  3. Only the outcasts change the world. Besides, why be normal when you can be exceptional?

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  4. Interesting blog post. I can relate for sure. Ave is a hard place to be sometimes.

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