Here's a little background information about me. I've never done a blog before and I'm not sure where to start so I guess I'll just go. I was born in the small suburb of Bexley, Ohio to recovering hippies. I had a pretty normal childhood, living a a bubble until I came to OU where I'm now just in a slightly larger bubble. I'm a junior at OU, a political science major, anthropology minor yet I don't intend to do anything specifically in either field. After I graduate I plan on joining Americorps for a year then maybe grad school for nutrition. I would love to become a nutritionist and work for a non-profit in the area of hunger relief.
Alright, onto the concept of heteronormativity.
There is one point in Yep's "Violence of Heteronormativity," that really stuck out to me, and I first I was skeptical about it, but after I gave it some thought it really made sense to me. It was the theory that within the boarders of heteronormativity there may exist violence against women. I by no means think that every heterosexual relationship is one of noticeable physical or mental violence against women, but I think it manifests itself more in an underlying inferiority that our culture has created. Women are constantly feeling pressure from men, society and other women to act and look perfect.
I was at ping last night and walked past a group of girls and heard one of them say they should put pictures of models inside their kitchen cabinets to stop them from eating. The fact that our society portrays sexy and beautiful as being stick-skinny and 5'10", places unrealistic expectations on girls, because in reality most of us are never going to look that way and that's okay.
Is that really what men want though? Or is it just what we think they want?
I thought about the same thing you did after I read the article. I feel like in the majority of the cases we, as women, put the pressure on ourselves rather than men putting it on us. I have always been a confident girl and never cared too much about what others thought about me, but I noticed myself changing a little after I moved into a house with 2 other girls. The girls I live with are stick skinny. Neither of them have an ounce of fat on them or by any means are fat or ugly, but both of them are constantly saying things like, "O, I just worked out at ping for 2 hours to get rid of my love handles" and (this is my favorite) "how many calories are in that?!" Now,unlike my roomies, I am an Italian girl meaning that I have boobs, butt, curves and all the in betweens...so I started to get a complex living with them. I was starting to think to myself, wow, this is what they think of skinny girls (themselves)...I wonder what they think of me? I always considered myself to be a normal size, but I have to admit that I started working out more and watching what I was eating just to avoid hearing them say things like, "what are you eating?" or.."O, I wish I could eat that...you are so lucky." (I'm sorry, but that sounds like an insult to me?) So, I urge girls to stop bashing each other...even "polite bashing" (like my room mates comments) can be destructive to someone else self esteem. Women have enough to worry about, we should't give each other added stress.
ReplyDeleteNina,
ReplyDeleteIt is absolutely crazy the things I hear when I'm working out at ping,too. I understand the want to be healthy and fit, but for most women, mostly younger, it's an obsession to look like a stick figure, something I will never understand, and with my mother's curvy genes, something I will never be able to attain. Since I've been old enough to try and attempt to understand the male mind, I've always wondered if they really enjoyed have a girl who was just skin and bones, and I think it really depends on the boy. I've asked my guy friends if they found it attractive, and each has said, in one way or another, that they like a little curve. This has especially been a topic in my life lately, because I have a thin friend, who could easily fit in the model range of skinny, who always says she would "die to have my ass". It makes me laugh, because it seems like we all just really want something we don't have, and beat ourselves up (quite literally, in some cases) over getting it.