Psychology of Women
I think the point of this chapter can
be headlined with one word: contradictions. Humans are complex creatures
capable of being emotionally torn in more than one direction at a time. Just as
laughter can turn to tears, our underlying feelings can bubble to the surface
and interrupt us at unexpected times. This is simply proof of a subconscious
and a conscious mind which co-exist simultaneously. More so, however, it is
also proof that we have more than one discourse influencing us at any given
time.
Claudia is the first example Phillips
uses to illustrate the contradictory nature of what we want and what we do. As
we’ve read throughout this book, it’s not always so easy to just stand up and
say, “I don’t like what’s going on here” and walk away. Based on a variety of
discourses, a woman seeking to be a good woman must abide by supporting what a
man wants. By nature, not discourse, a woman is also a sexual creature with
desires. These ideas can exist together, but their overlap can cause pain when
a woman’s sexual desire is taken advantage of and manipulated into desire to
please men. Only through extreme and illogical rationalizations can we make our
“minds” match up – our actions and our desires – and so pretend we had control
all along. Or at the very least, that we understand what happened.
The strategies outlined here are
employed before, during, and after a sexual encounter, and are also seen by the
woman as her individual choice – something private – when in reality her
choices are repeated from woman to woman with some variation. It’s almost as
though women are trapped in their own private fairy tale – believing they’re
living out a story, but it isn’t real.
The before strategies of “just
letting it happen” is something I’ve heard my friends say in the past. Rather
than take accountability (and pride) in their choices and desires, they chalk
it up to “fate” or “luck”. Not only in sexual relationships where they didn’t
want to seem like a “slut”, but in the classroom as well where they didn’t want
to be a “Goody-two shoes” or some kind of nerd. Good grades and awards were
never something you received on your own – modesty was the best way to go in
any situation. It is in the vein that women can never be “too much” of anything
– we must be objects acted upon – something seduced, something rewarded,
something being tangled in the strings of fate, or luck, or god – never our we
powerful enough to even acknowledge our own power because that would be blasphemous, or in smaller terms,
slutty.
The “everything but” strategy is
pretty similar to “just let it happen” because they’re both ways for a girl to
keep her mental illusion of purity while being sexual, but the “bad girl” one
is much more interesting to me. It reminded me a lot of Brown’s (?) book, where
we talked about how girls must either align with social constructs dictating
femininity or else throw it out all together, and it was this war between the
good and bad girls that was a part of girl fighting. Looking back now, I
actually was best friends with a girl who used this exact strategy. We just
said that P was “extremely sexual”, and she would admit her own sexual
drive as well. In the end, however, it was obvious that she wasn’t always happy
with her relationships and her constant sexualization by everyone else. It was
a role she played in order to have permission to do as she pleased, but like
T – there was a price. It was a cycle of just becoming what everyone
expected you to be, I guess, but every laugh and every innocent gesture was
instantly flirtation with her. She could never not be sexual.
I feel that the “become a desired
object” strategy goes hand in hand with the “bad girl” strategy, but it can
also be applied to the first two as well. The “playing with fire” also feels to
connect more closely to “bad girl”, but again can be mixed-and –matched. Both
of these seem like more aggressive strategies, despite still being illusions.
The “Change Him” discourse, however, is the one I’ve most personally struggled
with. My parents were never married, and my grandmother was single at the time
I was living with her. My sister is the only person in my immediate family who
has been married. I learned a lot of the actions I employed when I dated from
her. Teasing as a means to gain power, the constant catering and doing
spontaneous things like driving 400 miles every weekend for a semester to see
my college partner (who had no car and no job). I played out her relationship in my
own. The biggest one in high school was the “change him” idea – I was also so
intellectually mature and I thought for sure that I could make anyone become a
better person with my advice (which tends to be rather eloquently stated).
Of course, the “changing him” thing
isn’t just from my sister. I love Beauty and the Beast – what better fairy tale
to tell young girls that if they’re beautiful enough, they can change monsters
into princes? Being able to “change” a
man is like the ultimate merit badge of femininity. My last partner’s parents
both died before they were out of high school, and I was so sure that had
something to do with their behavior and seeming inability to have a decent
relationship. I thought for sure I could – pathetically – “show them what love
is”.
As they say, it takes a special kind
of woman to make a man settle down. Everyone wants to be special – men and
women alike – but the ways we’re told will make us stand out are vastly
different. No man needs to show more skin and whisper in a girl’s ear to feel
sexually empowered. No man needs to convince themselves that they’re a sexual
tool. The idea of a man changing a woman is preposterous….The worst part is
that all these strategies have also been devalued by men. It’s not like they
work – in fact – many of my guy friends and exs explain that they
hate it when girls do this stuff. Girls who “do anything but” are “leading them
on”, girls who want to “change him” are being picky and the boys say they “hate
being read”. Perhaps it’s a mix of the missing discourse of male
accountability, but it’s also just painfully ironic that the strategies
employed by women attempting to keep a shred of mental dignity turn guys off.
In the final set of discourses,
“stroking the male ego”, “mastering the male body”, “trying to like it”, and
“hoping he’ll notice” I saw a link between these discourses as being used in
sexual situations as well as in day to day life. Women don’t only employ these
when they feel victimized (unless, one could argue, they feel victimized all
the time). In my own relationship, as well as my sister’s and my friends –
hell, everywhere – I see the same messages. Kind of like the “Men are from
Mars, Women are from Venus” lies – as a woman the message is clear to “stroke
the male ego”. Make him feel “like a man”. Also, and again with the “things
that we do that seem to actually annoy men”, is the “hoping he’ll notice”. Not
only in the bedroom but in daily life is that tactic used to the utter
unhappiness of women everywhere. He’ll say to you, “Don’t do that – don’t just
assume I know what you’re thinking. Tell me” but then you tell him and you’re a
nag or something. The truth is, he just doesn’t want you to be thinking
anything at all, except maybe how great he is (stroking the male ego), or how
much you want him (when in reality you’re just “trying to like it” or being a
“bad girl”, or “just letting it happen”, or “playing with fire”.)
It’s sad in a way, because just as
harmful to a woman’s psyche it is to live under a veil of rationalizations,
it’s really this big joke on men too. Our relationships start having nothing to
do with people connecting at all, but instead are these repeated
“individualized” wars to be something that no one really is.
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