Here’s the shindig. I’m on the first floor of Swem Library pretending like I’m working on my to be jumbo-sized senior seminar paper and I got to thinking about, what else, women. And women’s issues. And the female experience. Ok, before you roll your eyes and click on the Campus Cutie (ain’t he simply a gem, ladies?), hear me out. Now while my paper is supposed to be on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s feminist classic The Yellow Wallpaper (Read it, read it, read it! It’s wonderful…especially if you’re a dorky English major not unlike, well, me), I by no means intend to spiral this article into a ranting homage to movies like Girl Interrupted (except for Wynona Ryder’s unfailing sense of style in that movie…you know, minus the crazy) and the typically angst-ridden interests that young, jaded feminists tend to dwell on (again, not unlike yours truly). Rather, I’d like to make an accessible, relatable query regarding the constant labels we are put under as young girls and what it does to us and our well-being in the long run (which may include, yet is not limited to what happens in the aforementioned works of literature and film…though I hope mental breakdowns are not in your futures, and they shouldn’t be if you keep perspective on these pesky social categorizations).
In terms of labels, I’m talking about things ranging from a relatively harmless “hot” to more loaded things like “b*tch” and “sl*t”. You’ve heard all these terms before, especially when it becomes extremely convenient to use them, like say, when attempting to describe some adulteress who made out with your boyfriend outside of the College Deli. While it seems harmless to use derogatory terms, we should probably remember that when these terms are used so negatively and directed toward a particular gender, it might perpetuate the ideology that it’s not ok to be “b*tchy” or “sl*tty” if you are a girl and that we need to adhere to some sort of pre-set image that is squeaky clean. Here’s my deal. Aren’t we all both of those things sometimes? And aren’t we good people anyway (well, I am, and I’ve definitely been both)? So why should we maliciously put each other down using words that we enact all the time? We should embrace that sometimes, after a particularly bad date, we get a little pissed off. It’s okay to be irrational after a break-up. It ain’t no thang if we make out with a few strapping young lads at a dance party, though let’s be real, they were probably mediocre at best (not your fault, purely circumstance) and astonishingly similar looking (yeah, you should have probably taken note that they were in fact NOT the same person, that one’s on you). We shouldn’t get chastised or put down for showing our emotions and letting lose. Let’s just be real about things and not hate, because that just adds extra pressure in a society that already pressures us to be beautiful, thin, and pleasant all the time, and the list could go on. So if these words are used, I’d rather they be used in a way that doesn’t intend to bring another girl down for her actions (and not by men who probably won’t understand them as terms of endearment, ever…kind of like how racial slurs are a no, no for those WASPs out there). Subsequently this is why I don’t hate when girls shout “Oh you sl*t!” endearingly with a smile and a hug after her friend went home with that cute guy from that one place (perhaps he was a Campus Cutie, or perhaps he does not exist and this is a fictitious circumstance used to further a point). Embracing these terms with full knowledge of their irrelevance and with a sense of humor is definitely the way to go. Plus, it takes the brunt of the power and malice behind those words and morphs them into acceptance of doing things that are, when we get down to it, just human. Nothing is more icky than a girl who talks behind other girl’s back and actually means these words as a way of bringing her sister down. Those girls can just…go home. They are not invited to my girl-power party.
Anyway, back to my feminist paper, I think that putting importance to labels can add pressure to us girls (we’re just tryin’ to keep our own out here am I right) and that we need to be more understanding, accepting, and open about our experiences, otherwise the pressure may prove to be too much and we could end up all koo-koo for cocoa puffs and obsessing over ugly wallpaper patterns (that one’s for the ones who read Giman, that smart b*tch was on to somethin’!).