Do no harm: Feminism from the point of view of a strong-willed non-feminist

I just read a very good article about how feminism affects men. I agree with the entire article, but it did get me thinking about men's role in feminism.

I don't claim to be a feminist. I don't feel like society is making it hard for me to be all the woman that I want to be. Perhaps it's because I've never really felt like I fit in with women. I grew up with only brothers. My closest friend in elementary school was a boy. In 5th grade I decided to learn the drums, and it wasn't to prove a point like the only other girl I knew who was also learning drums. I picked it because I wanted an outlet and I thought it would be fun. From that point on I knew I had to prove myself, and I rose to the challenge. I was the first 7th grader from my middle school to go to state on anything for the state music competition, and I went on a solo. I was in several honors bands and I was first chair in many of them. I was snare captain of the drumline and drum co-captain the next year. In college, I have been in two bands. One I was asked to join because they needed more percussionists and I can play 4-mallets.

When it comes to "being in the world of men," I have never felt wrongfully challenged. When I have been challenged by a guy, it was either because I was too shy to show what I could really do, or, in one case, the guy was so absorbed in himself that he couldn't take any direction. I didn't take that one personally because he treated a lot of the guys the same way.

The only times I have felt wrongfully challenged have been by women. In high school I lost drum captainship for unknown reasons, but I can reasonably assume based on following actions that it was because my female band director did not like me. I personally think she felt threatened by me because she was always talking about how hard it was to be a woman in a "man's profession" and she hated that I was thriving on a "man's instrument." The only other time was in college. The band I was offered a place in had 3 guy percussionists and 2 girls. One of those girls seemed to hate me. She couldn't let me do anything without first showing me how. It was very frustrating to me because I could not offer any help to her. She was very catty and seemed to hate that I didn't have to audition. The guys, however, readily accepted me. When they offered me help, they would do it nicely and ask first.

So what was the point of that story? So you can understand my opinion of many feminists. Based on my experience, confidence is the number 1 factor in being accepted somewhere. While I know that sexism does exist, most of  the stories I have been pesronally told (not read) sound like the woman is being too sensitive. It also seems like a lot of women put themselves in situations that they cannot handle. So many women go into a male-dominated situation and immediately try to "be one of the guys" but get offended when they are treated like a man. They then start to hate men, call them pigs and claim to be injured in some way.

Feminists that I respect are women who go into the world and act like women and expect to be treated with respect. These are the people who can speak for the rights of women and get attention. I may not agree with everything they say, but I can respect where they are coming from.

So where do men play into all of this? Are they hurt by feminism? My answer is yes and no. I'll start first with no.

The way I understand feminism is that women want an equal position in the world as men. In marriage, that does not mean the wife dominates the husband. It means the wife gets equal say as the husband. In the work place it means that women have every opportunity men are given based on equal qualification. It means that women have just as much chance of acheiving any goal as men.

When this is the goal, there is no harm to men. The only harm men can possibly get from this type of feminism is self-inflicted. The men who are threatened by strong women need to grow up. When it comes to ability, men and women are pretty evenly matched unless a physical element is brought in. Men who don't want to be up for a promotion against a woman should stop whining and work harder to get that promotion. I can tell you, most women have already worked pretty darn hard to get on equal footing as men in most offices.

However, there are types of feminism that severely harm men. Women who take their feminism too far, put down men, under-value men's contributions to society and claim they can do everything without men is harmful. That does not build women up, it simply tears men down. While this is not the goal of most feminist organizations, it seems to be the goal of many women. I understand that these women were probably hurt at one point, but it just shows an immaturity on their part. There is nothing different between that and men claiming superiority over women. No one is superior based on sex. Women who fall under this category not only harm men, they harm women.

Put your behind in your past

Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend about loving yourself for who you are. Once again I had too many thoughts to say in one conversation so I'm going to put them all up on the internet! That's what the internet is for, right?

Way too many people use "love yourself for who you are" as an excuse. I think the meaning of this has been twisted by society. There has been such a focus on condemning models and celebrities for giving us a skewed idea of beauty and it drives me nuts. As I told a friend once, models are picked because they wear the clothes well. A fashion designer doesn't want everybody looking at the model, they want everybody looking at the clothes. The fashion industry knows this. The designers that design for people shaped like a model rarely go far. Girls like me have a hard time finding clothes that fit, not because clothes are designed for models, but because the average girl has considerably less curviness to their bodies. If clothes were produced for girls shaped like me more girls would complain about how they fit. Instead of hearing girls complain about how they can't wear button down shirts or they have to wear baggier shirts to fit their hips, we'd be hearing more girls complaining about how they can't fill up the tops of shirts, how everything is baggy and will only fit them around the waist.

Why does this matter? Because I want it to be somewhere on the internet that says you can love yourself for who you are and still want to look better without it being unhealthy. "Love yourself for who you are" doesn't mean accept the hand that has been given you. I truly believe it means love your personality and body type.

I feel I can use myself as an example of loving yourself for who you are because I have struggled with this and come out on top. I love myself for who I am. I don't wish I had another body, but I work hard to make sure my body looks as good as it can. The biggest thing I struggled with was my skin. I was born with skin that is prone to acne and boils. I had skin that hurt for a long time. Over the counter acne treatments would help for a little while but none of them lasted. If I had decided to "love myself for who I am" as it is understood by many people today, I would still struggle with this constantly. It has not gotten better as I've gotten older and in fact has gotten worse. I decided it was worth it to take the extra time to take an antibiotic and my skin has cleared up considerably.

This might not be the best example because that is skin and this is normally aimed at weight. I would like to point out that I started the antibiotics because of comfort, not looks. When you're a healthy weight you feel better. I have never heard someone say "I wish I was fat again." When it comes to looks, love what you have and work so you can love what you don't love. I'm not saying get plastic surgery or something. I'm saying if you're over weight, work to be a healthy weight. If you are a healthy weight and you don't like the shape of your body, find flattering clothes. Remember that no one can wear every style, not even hour glass shapes (for girls) or extremely v-shapes (for guys). I'm hour glass shaped and many people seem to think hour glass shaped girls can wear anything. This is false. I cannot wear shirts that are baggy and then come in around the hips or most empire waist things. I also look horrible in yellow. I don't know why cause my skin tone should look good in yellow... I know this, so I don't wear those types of shirts no matter how much I like the shirt/dress. Clothes really can help body image.

The same thing goes for other features you may or may not like. For example, I love my eyes and lips but I hate my nose. How do I not fret about my nose? I accentuate my eyes and avoid makeup styles and glasses that might bring attention to my nose.

Now that I've spent so much time on physical appearance, it's time to say what I think that phrase really means. I don't think it's supposed to be about our bodies. I think it's supposed to be about out personalities. I don't think I'm alone when I say I could spend hours listing my faults. Everyone has them, no one has exactly the same faults as anyone else. I think "love yourself for who you are" means to love yourself even though you have faults. Again, this doesn't mean you shouldn't work on yourself. I just think it means love yourself while you strive to make yourself a better person. There is no reason you should hate yourself. You might hate things that you've done, but that should never keep you from loving yourself. Rafiki said this better than I ever could.

Rafiki was teaching Simba to love himself for who he is. That's really what The Lion King means to me. Simba still has his faults at the end of the movie, but he doesn't hate himself anymore.

How to be classy

I want to share something this week that has to do with fashion. I've had a hard time deciding what to share. I've decided to share a lesson I prepared for the girls back home about modesty a few years ago. The great thing about this lesson is it's designed in a way that it won't change with time. I want to share it in hopes that someone, some where, can get some ideas from it. This will be modified from the original lesson a little, but it's basically the same thing.

When I was a younger I was awkward (who isn't?) and I never thought boys would like me ever. When I got to high school boys were suddenly paying attention to me and I loved it. I soon realized that boys like cleavage. I was not lacking in this field and I figured there would be no harm in showing a little so I would wear increasingly lower cut shirts. I had heard the lessons in church about modesty but it was always something along the lines of "dress modestly because you're told to." I'm stubborn and a little rebellious (not much, but I tend to like to do the opposite of what I'm told when I'm not given a good reason. I once really wanted to get married just because my friend said I couldn't get married before her because her and her boyfriend had been dating longer and I thought that was a silly reason). It took a while before I realized there was a good reason I was told to dress modestly, and I wished someone had given me a better reason. I have come up with three reasons.

1. Dressing modestly shows you have respect for yourself. When you cover up you're telling people you don't need to be an object to feel good about yourself. You're confident in who you are in all ways, not just in your appearance. Girls that dress immodestly give off the impression that they feel they can only impress people with their bodies. In the business world it shows that you have little confidence in your abilities. While girls that show up to job interviews in short skirts and falling out of their shirts may get the job sometimes, in any respectable work places it wouldn't fly. You're taking away from your resume when dressing like that. It gives the message to your future employer that, no matter how impressive your resume is, you don't have the confidence in it to get you a job alone. 
2. Dressing modestly shows you have respect for others. Let's use the interview example again. When a girl goes in for a job interview with things hanging out and what not, it distracts the interviewer from the resume. If the interviewer is male, he may have a hard time looking at your face. I don't care what you may say about the interviewer, this is what happens. It doesn't matter if he's looking at your chest, legs, midriff, what ever is showing, or decidedly behind you or above you or down at what ever is in front of him. The fact still remains that he's not looking at your face. I don't know if many girls realize this, but revealing clothing can be distracting for female interviewers, as well. It may or may not be in the same way. Now put this in the every day world. Nearly every day you will see people. Most of these people don't want to see everything you have at once. Dressing immodestly is bound to make someone feel uncomfortable around you every day.
3. Dressing immodestly for a boy will not impress him and if it does he's not a boy you should be trying to impress. I think this is pretty simple and straight forward. Most women want to feel respected by men. If a guy is talking to you and dating you because he likes your (enter body part here), where is that relationship going to go? That's right, to the entered body part. If you're looking for a good, healthy relationship, impress a boy with your laugh, brain, wit, what have you. I'm not saying don't look good. Do look good. Looking good is important. But, as Michael Kors said at some point on Project Runway, you don't have to show everything to have sex appeal. 

Another bit in this lesson I gave had to do with shopping. I'm going to shorten this section considerably because it's hard to type. I had girls pick things that went together to make a point.

It is possible to make almost anything modest by layering. Always have good white and black camisoles. The best way to layer is by following this check list in the order I will present it:

1. Color If your reds are a little off and right next to each other someone will notice. If your colors clash horribly everyone will notice. This is the first thing people will see
2. Style The next thing people see is style. You don't have to be close to someone to see that they mixed styles that compliment each other or didn't. I can spot style clashes from 50 feet easy and I can't be the only one.
3. Fabric Not many people can tell exactly what type of fabric you're wearing until they're within talking distance. It's important to match fabrics, this will just be the last thing people see. 

Now, don't go crazy layering. The less you wear t-shirts under tank tops the better. Layering doesn't always have to be like that, either. It's perfectly acceptable to wear a nice blazer over a more revealing blouse to make it less revealing. If you really want to wear t-shirts under things, make sure your neck lines compliment each other. A good example is a crew neck with a halter top. That looks tacky. I actually think most halters look tacky anyway, but that looks especially tacky. If you're not like me and do like halters, scoop or v necks look the best with them. 

When you go shopping, go shopping with someone, preferably someone that is blunt. Ask them if something looks tacky if you can't decide. It's also nice to have someone there to tell you if your butt crack is showing when you sit down. Always make sure you sit down when trying on pants, shorts, skirts, and dresses. Decide how long you want your skirts and make sure they're still that long when you sit. Bend over, move around, make sure your clothes actually fit and won't fall off. 

And finally a word of advice: Get classic clothes. A pair of nice jeans will never go out of style. Fads can be nice but they won't last. But never give up! I entered the mature clothing stage in the early millennium when all the shirts were short and the pants were low and butt crack was the new cleavage. Bermuda shorts didn't exist, knee length skirts were rare, knee length dresses even rarer. When there is a slump in good clothes, just wait it out. Buy classic clothes while you can and they can last you until you feel comfortable with the styles again.