Saturday, March 23, 2013

Somebodies

I saw this quote on Tumblr today and I thought it was really great:

We gotta start teaching our daughters to be somebodies instead of somebody’s.

This made me think of de Beauvoir's writing that we read. Women in our society are encouraged to be somebody's, meaning that we are encouraged to be a girlfriend, a wife, etc., basically "the Other" rather than "the One." We even get rewarded for doing so. I notice all of the time that girls who have boyfriends are envied, and from experience I can say that being somebody's girlfriend has a lot of advantages. You always have someone to hang out with, so you are never lonely. You always have a date for parties, etc. It really makes you feel and appear to be desired in our society if you are a women who is with a man. It is like silently saying "I am attractive enough and likable enough for a man to devote his time to me." To me, this screams "I have submitted to the male gaze enough to get a man, and you have no man because you obviously have not submitted enough." I do not entirely believe that to be the case, but I do feel that is how society views it.

I agree de Beauvoir, that being an "Other" has A LOT of advantages to it, and I feel that society teaches women how to be good "Others," if they follow the "rules" and submit to the male gaze. However nice these advantages may be, this is not teaching women how to be successful on their own, but rather teaching them that they need a man, someone to be dependent on, in order to succeed because they cannot do it on their own.

Thus, I have to agree that we need to start teaching women to be somebodies instead of somebody's. We are going to have to give up some advantages that we receive for being an "Other" but I think, in the long run, more successful, independent women would be a better thing for our society.

1 comment:

  1. I love this quote and is definitely the message we should give to girls and women. This is a very optimistic idea of what they future could be for women everywhere if we refuse to celebrate the "rewards" we get by being belongings to somebody else. Instead we should instill the belief that a self-defining life is more rewarding than anything else, including being someone's something. This makes me think a lot about the "goddess" piece we read and class also and the ideology behind it. If we begin to see strength, beauty and worth within ourselves as women, there is no need for a man's approval or recognition much less become an "other". Thanks for this awesome post!

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