I've been deceiving you all this time. I'm not a Real Woman.
I'm going to the Show today. Haven't been in ages. So that's going to be interesting.
There's a talkback session on the radio right now about 'real men'. People calling in and giving the host their examples of 'real men'. And I just want to shout "All of them! They're all real!"
I hate these sayings, this idea, that there are 'real men' and 'real women'. It's such a blatant, powerful, direct anecdotal way of reinforcing gender stereotypes. Real men are butch, heterosexual, rugged, tough... because how many men are exactly like that? Are most of the men of Australia, what, fake men? Just pretending to be men? As Henry Rollins once said, they all jerk off the same way.
I take less issue with the phrase 'real women' since it tends to be used more to oppose impossible ideals in the beauty industry than to narrowly define what women should be. In the anti-beauty ads sense, it seems to be used to open up the category of 'woman' (the media should show more women who aren't skinny, blonde and airbrushed) rather than restrict it (real women wear skirts).
But I remain acutely aware, every time I read MX or a magazine or just overhear a group of women chatting at a cafe, that I am not, in the eyes of popular culture, a 'real woman'.
There's a talkback session on the radio right now about 'real men'. People calling in and giving the host their examples of 'real men'. And I just want to shout "All of them! They're all real!"
I hate these sayings, this idea, that there are 'real men' and 'real women'. It's such a blatant, powerful, direct anecdotal way of reinforcing gender stereotypes. Real men are butch, heterosexual, rugged, tough... because how many men are exactly like that? Are most of the men of Australia, what, fake men? Just pretending to be men? As Henry Rollins once said, they all jerk off the same way.
I take less issue with the phrase 'real women' since it tends to be used more to oppose impossible ideals in the beauty industry than to narrowly define what women should be. In the anti-beauty ads sense, it seems to be used to open up the category of 'woman' (the media should show more women who aren't skinny, blonde and airbrushed) rather than restrict it (real women wear skirts).
But I remain acutely aware, every time I read MX or a magazine or just overhear a group of women chatting at a cafe, that I am not, in the eyes of popular culture, a 'real woman'.