Friday, September 15, 2006
So: Quiet rebellion
By Jocy L. So
Unraveling
IT'S hard being a girl. There is a certain social expectation of what a girl, a proper girl, should be that stifles girls from exploring new things and being confident about who they truly are. I used to hate pink, because it forced me to be the feminine girl I wasn't. I didn't understand why girls had to be a certain way, be graceful and quiet and pretty with pale, unblemished skin, a skinny figure, and flowing black hair, when boys can act out and be free to discover the world.
Maybe that's why I thrived in Girl Scouting. That was an avenue for me to be a leader, to build on my confidence, acquire new skills, and to not care whether my hair was perfectly in place. In Girl Scouting I could kick down stereotypes and preconceived ideas people had about what a proper little girl should look like or how she should act. I could be dirty, tanned, strong, and sweaty and not care.
It's hard being a girl. Growing up, it perplexed me sometimes why most films and stories with a female protagonist, like fairy tales, focus on the girl meeting or getting the guy, whereas their male counterparts go on life transformations that focus more on their personal growth not on the romantic aspect.
In college, I had a friend who was articulate, intelligent, rich, and beautiful, but when her boyfriend broke up with her, she fell to pieces, saying she'd never been without a man since she was 12 and she didn't know what to do now that she was single. A week later, she hooked up with another guy who treated her just as badly as her former boyfriends.
It's illogical to immediately pity a woman just because she is single when there are many married women more miserable than her. A woman can be successful in her career, accomplish many things, heck find the cure for cancer and AIDS, be the president of the whole wide world, and invent a time traveling machine, and still she'll be looked upon with pity if she's not married. As if she's not complete without a man. As if she needs to be rescued by a man. As if she needs to be validated by man. Why is it rarely the other way around?
It's hard being a girl. Despite progress made over gender issues, it's hard to erase ingrained ideas about the value of a girl compared to the value of a boy. Female infanticide is rampant in India and China because couples prefer a son to a daughter. In the Philippines, young girls may not be killed at birth, but their dignity is destroyed in life. From 1991-1996, there were 8,335 cases of child abuse in the country, and 96% of the victims were females.
There are 400,000 to 500,000 prostituted persons in the Philippines. Most of them are adult women, but the Philippines is fourth in a world survey with the most children in prostitution with 60,000 to 100,000. Most child prostitutes are girls. In Davao City, there are reportedly more than 1,000 prostituted teen-age girls, and customers pay as little as from P25 to P125 for their "services."
It's hard being a girl because sometimes you feel frustrated seeing how many girls buy into the myths of what a girl should be and have, and what a girl's worth is. Singer Pink lashed out about that in her song, "Stupid Girls." Are girls supposed to aspire to be like Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, and Lindsay Lohan? Yes, they are successful, but at what expense? By peddling the idea that girls have to focus on their looks, act cute, be ditsy, party-loving, and catty to each other?
With so many exasperating media models around, it's comforting to have strong grandmothers to help young girls understand that it might be hard to be a girl but it doesn't mean we can't fight it. My student Ashley's grandmother told her to "Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone's disbelief." My friend Carolyn's grandmother taught her not to rely on others to define your success; success comes when you do your best and believe in yourself not when others tell you you're successful. And from my own grandmother, who was a young and recent immigrant from China when she was widowed with six children in Cagayan de Oro, I learned that no matter how tragic life becomes, you can get through it with faith, hard work, laughter, and self-confidence.
Belated happy grandparents day!
Jocy L. So teaches at Davao Christian High School
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (September 15, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
