Miss Representation
I saw a film today, Miss Representation, written and directed by Jennifer Siebel-Newsom. It brings to light how women are portrayed in the media, which I know we're all familiar with - women as sex objects...but it was interesting that women in power like Hillary Clinton or Diane Fienstein, or Katie Couric are also reduced to their fashion sense and sexuality and not valued for their thoughts and intellect. That last part was interesting and eye opening.
I recently started watching the series Mad Men, which takes place in the 60s, and at the beginning of the series, I remember thinking to myself that I am glad not to have lived through that era, but what this film made me realize is that we have not progressed very much in the last half-century. It would appear that we have, but the same oppressive attitudes still exist; they have simply morphed. I wanted to reflect on my own life experience though as I've begun to reflect on the film. As "feminist" as I was growing up, something changed when I grew up and had kids. I suddenly defaulted to all these attitudes my family fed me as a child. They're embodied in comments like, "If you keep playing soccer, you'll get bruises on your legs and no one will marry you." "You need to go to a good school to find good marriage material."...not so I can make a contribution to the world, not b/c I'm smart and I can get into a good school, and not so I can be on the road to a fulfilling career, but so that I can find a good catch. Getting married and having children was set up as the pinnacle of my life, and that set me up for disappointment and some amount of depression. While I love my husband and my children, after the initial honeymoon stage the relationships take a lot of work including those with your children, and what was set up in my mind as the destination was not as fulfilling as one would imagine when one has arrived at THE final destination.
I haven't fully processed this thought, but I think that this mentality also set me up for frustrations in parenting b/c I felt enslaved to the children in many ways. I think this led to their lack of respectful behavior toward me, and their feeling that they are entitled to boss me around. There's an interplay here though with how I carry myself and also what respect my husband models for the kids. I think I was parenting in such as way as to communicate that they could boss me around. I must have deferred to the kids and disempowered myself. I've already started to work on changing this, but now I have more clarity about my role in their lives. I need to teach them to become more and more independent and to do things on their own. I need to empower them without disempowering myself.
So along with being fed these traditional ideas about women/me all my life, I also had to contend with the fact that my parents both expected and wanted a boy when I was born. I'm pretty sure I was unplanned, and my mother having me at the age of 40, I was their last chance at having a boy. However, they were disappointed, and in moments of weakness, my mother made that clear. Processing these thoughts has been interesting b/c it makes me realize just how devalued I was growing up, and just how much I have internalized it. I have often wondered where my confident, former self went. She disappeared at some point, and I have often longed to embody her again. She wasn't the kind of person that my parents thought I am supposed to be though, as a wife and mother. That was an idea reinforced by my in-laws when I was married. Having a mind of my own and making decisions for myself was not a positive thing, and we had our fair share of conflicts that have defined our relationship or lack there of over the last decade that I've been married.
I believe that there is something inside me that has always known that I am more valuable than what my family has reflected to me my entire life. It's been hard to rise above that more recently, and it's been crippling in all areas of my life, particularly in relationships. The lie that I lack value for who I am and as I am has been incredibly debilitating. I wonder if I will always battle these thoughts, if they have become a permanent part of my psyche or if I will be able to shed them. I hope I will be able to shed them and never come back to them again. I'm ready to move forward and out of this bondage.
I recently started watching the series Mad Men, which takes place in the 60s, and at the beginning of the series, I remember thinking to myself that I am glad not to have lived through that era, but what this film made me realize is that we have not progressed very much in the last half-century. It would appear that we have, but the same oppressive attitudes still exist; they have simply morphed. I wanted to reflect on my own life experience though as I've begun to reflect on the film. As "feminist" as I was growing up, something changed when I grew up and had kids. I suddenly defaulted to all these attitudes my family fed me as a child. They're embodied in comments like, "If you keep playing soccer, you'll get bruises on your legs and no one will marry you." "You need to go to a good school to find good marriage material."...not so I can make a contribution to the world, not b/c I'm smart and I can get into a good school, and not so I can be on the road to a fulfilling career, but so that I can find a good catch. Getting married and having children was set up as the pinnacle of my life, and that set me up for disappointment and some amount of depression. While I love my husband and my children, after the initial honeymoon stage the relationships take a lot of work including those with your children, and what was set up in my mind as the destination was not as fulfilling as one would imagine when one has arrived at THE final destination.
I haven't fully processed this thought, but I think that this mentality also set me up for frustrations in parenting b/c I felt enslaved to the children in many ways. I think this led to their lack of respectful behavior toward me, and their feeling that they are entitled to boss me around. There's an interplay here though with how I carry myself and also what respect my husband models for the kids. I think I was parenting in such as way as to communicate that they could boss me around. I must have deferred to the kids and disempowered myself. I've already started to work on changing this, but now I have more clarity about my role in their lives. I need to teach them to become more and more independent and to do things on their own. I need to empower them without disempowering myself.
So along with being fed these traditional ideas about women/me all my life, I also had to contend with the fact that my parents both expected and wanted a boy when I was born. I'm pretty sure I was unplanned, and my mother having me at the age of 40, I was their last chance at having a boy. However, they were disappointed, and in moments of weakness, my mother made that clear. Processing these thoughts has been interesting b/c it makes me realize just how devalued I was growing up, and just how much I have internalized it. I have often wondered where my confident, former self went. She disappeared at some point, and I have often longed to embody her again. She wasn't the kind of person that my parents thought I am supposed to be though, as a wife and mother. That was an idea reinforced by my in-laws when I was married. Having a mind of my own and making decisions for myself was not a positive thing, and we had our fair share of conflicts that have defined our relationship or lack there of over the last decade that I've been married.
I believe that there is something inside me that has always known that I am more valuable than what my family has reflected to me my entire life. It's been hard to rise above that more recently, and it's been crippling in all areas of my life, particularly in relationships. The lie that I lack value for who I am and as I am has been incredibly debilitating. I wonder if I will always battle these thoughts, if they have become a permanent part of my psyche or if I will be able to shed them. I hope I will be able to shed them and never come back to them again. I'm ready to move forward and out of this bondage.
posted by haed at 12:38 AM
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