Small Strokes Big Oaks

In a previous post, I discussed girl politics as the relate to Coach Tim’s volleyball team.  Today, I’d like to take that a little further and discuss woman politics.  This sort of thing doesn’t always stop just because you grow up, although a few commenters expressed a relief that these girl politics were over for them. I would like to posit that woman politics are still very much at play.

Even though we’d like to believe it isn’t true, a woman after the age of 25, or a woman surrounding herself with women after the age of 25 within a career or some such setting, must fit into a certain role or be seen as Boo-ette Radley (a female version of the neighbor who is anti-social, alone, and scares small children; see To Kill a Mockingbird).  Being only on the cusp of 25 myself, I can only share bits of anecdotal and philosophical evidence to back up this point, but I will share it, anyway.  Take it for what it is.

It seems to me that, first and foremost, a post-25-woman (hereafter referenced as simply “woman”) must fall into either the “married” or “unmarried” category.   If a woman is married, she has obviously taken the necessary steps in order to be a suitable wife and, therefore, accepted into woman society.  If she is “unmarried,” she will fall into one of three subcategories.
Subcategory 1: “engaged.”  If a woman at 25 is engaged or, at the very least, in a serious relationship that is moving towards engagement, she feels included in society for a few reasons, not least of which is the fact that she has answers to all of those questions about marriage posed to her from other married or soon-to-be-married people, as well as input into the thousands upon thousands of wedding conversations in which she will find herself included, whether she wants it or not.
Subcategory 2: “broken-hearted.”  A broken-hearted woman is much better than a single woman because at least she has the capability of having a meaningful relationship, but has been dumped by that jerk who lead her to believe she was on her way to marriage and then changed his mind and left her high and dry.  People – mostly other women – generally feel sorry for her and want to befriend her.  They want to take her out, make her feel better, introduce her to their wonderful, single man friends.  This happens especially if she is bubbly and friendly and generally optimistic.  Women generally feel even sorrier for women in this category who are optimistic because “how could that jerk ever have left her?”
Subcategory 3: “single.”  A single woman is either totally single, playing the field, or she dumped that jerk herself.  Either way, she is seen as completely self-centered, only dealing with her own problems and not able to give up enough of herself in order to care for and love a man enough for him to want to marry her.  She is self-sufficient, a career woman, a witch.  I say that with love.

Oh yea, I almost forgot Subcategory 4: “lesbian.”  That is another post for another time.

(See this post about unmarried women for another POV on the unmarried woman.)

Don’t get me wrong here.  I do not see anything against marriage at all, if you’re ready for it.  That is, if you know enough about yourself and what you want out of life that you won’t lose yourself completely in him and be totally miserable because you have no idea who you are any more.  Most of my friends who are reading this are probably either married or ready for it, and I respect that immensely.  I’m ready for it, totally.  I’m in love, for crying out loud, and I’m ready for that next step in my life.  I’m just saying this is how us unmarried women are seen.

On that note, I think it’s time for an anecdote: When I was about ready to graduate from college, I was faced with the situation of knowing what I wanted to do with my life at that point, which meant I needed to get a job.  I also thought I would be with the guy I was dating at the time for the rest of my life, so I took a job close to him.  Needless to say, he dumped me, and I spent some time in the “broken-hearted” category before moving on to the “single” category.  My mentor and friend that first year of teaching was a married woman in her mid-30’s.  She seemed relatively happy with her life, you know, aside from talking about how she wished everything was different.  We were sitting around with another woman, her friend and another teacher, talking about men.  They were talking about weddings and marriage and all that, and I said something to the extent of, “I’m not giving up my last name,” or something that equally asserted my independence, and my mentor said, “Yea, and that’s why you’re not married.”  This totally implied that, unless I gave up my independence, I would never find marital bliss.  Even her friend thought this was harsh, especially considering I was only 22 at the time, and in no place to be married or even in a serious relationship.  Just an example of a “married” woman judging a “single” one.

It isn’t just married women that judge unmarried women, though.  All women are competitive.   Tim’s brother once tried to convince me that women don’t dress well for the men they’re with; they dress well because other women might dress well, and they wouldn’t want to be left out.  I think this is partially true.  Women dress for other women in that they don’t want to be the “ugly” ones, the ones who aren’t noticed by the men.  If a woman does everything she can to be noticed and still is passed by for another woman, that other woman is automatically a witch.  Even if she is the nicest person in the world, she is a witch because she is competition.  I have an anecdote about this, as well, but if you went to college with me, you probably know it, and I think it’s in bad taste to share in a public forum.

Women are judged by other women because of the way they dress (if they dress better or are noticed more, they are witches), their work ethic (if they work harder or do a better job, they are witches), their relationship status (if they are single, they are witches); their intelligence (if they are smarter, they are witches); see a trend?

It seems that the only way women can be truly friends if they are on exactly the same level in every category.  Even my class of 27 16-year-old boys the other day came to the consensus that, if women could give up their weird competitions and band together, they could rule the world.

So I’ll end this post with a question too: why don’t we?  Why don’t we give up the weird competition and jealousy and labels and just meet each other where we are, accept each other for all of the faults and quirks that make us human?  Why do we continue girl politics well into our womanhood?  And can this be stopped?

The Girl Politics Series (click to read them all) is a series of posts that first appeared over at my personal blog, and it was actually the response I received over there that made me think that keeping a feminist-leaning blog might be my calling.  It also partially inspired my tweeting and Good Wife paper.  I  thought these posts might be breathed to new life and new conversation over here, and so here they are.