I hate to say it, ladies, but in 1920, we won the right to vote for President. Along with that right came a flood of others that, if you really put your mind to it, make us the equal counterpart to men.What does that have to do with anything?
It's simply this: The time for punching each other in the face and getting disputes over with has arrived and has been overdue for many years. Sure, we're the more delicately featured and attractive sex, but let's face it, when it comes to arguing and disagreeing amongst ourselves, well we just plain suck at it.
And we usually take down a lot of innocent bystanders along the way.
The advent of the social networking site compounds the already traditional 'lunch table mentality' we adhere to by making your online status the equivalent to whether you do or do not have the coolest pair of jeans (Guess or Breakers, in my childhood era) or your period at the time of transmission.
It's shit.
And it's horribly addicting. It's a female social experiment gone horribly wrong. We're so confused between being socially acceptable and polite and our natural urge to stand up for ourselves that we breed passive-aggressiveness all over the GD place.
For example, on Facebook:
Gwen feels like smiting.
Looks harmless enough, though Gwen knows that her friends know that this 'smite' remark revolves around something that someone supposedly said to someone else behind someone's back and around the same time that someone told so-and-so that same thing, but differently.
Well Gwen, go smite someone you mighty mighty smiter. Smote them!
Frankly, go smite yourself.
Or, on Myspace,
Michele thinks everyone should just get along and take the high road.
This was my path at one point, trying to be the proverbial cyber-yogi that I aspire to be, but honestly, all it does is piss off the angry women.
So what makes us angry?
Let's look at that shall we?
-Don't touch 'our men' or bake them cookies, smile at them, look in their general direction, text them, wear anything relatively provocative around them, and above all, don't add them on your online social site. Note - we've already peed on them and they are OURS.
(*laugh with me here)
-Never look better than I do in public. It's almost okay if we're hanging out just the few of us, but never in public like a club, restaurant, concert, etc. It guarantees you more attention than me.
-Don't talk above me. If you know bigger words or better sentence structure, tone it down. It's mocking.
-Always agree.
If you don't, hold it in until you find someone else to agree with you and then never tell me you feel differently.
-If you lose any weight, I'll murder you in your sleep or will acne on you. It's that simple.
-You really shouldn't have more or better than me: property, children, assets, etc.
I mean, envy is a sin, but if we joke about it then it's not really a slam, see?
-Never 'friend' anyone online that I wouldn't. And NEVER talk to them!
-Never be "one of the guys." If you are, then you have an 'in' the rest of us don't have and we can't compete with it.
These are just a few slights not to mention the 'near-slights' and the 'she-might-of-saids' over the years that tear us up and down and spit us into the mouth of girl world and right out the ass of 'this is a piece of crap.'
Women piss me off sometimes. I'm sorry, but it's true. And we're all guilty of it sometimes.
I tend to take the 'holier than thou' approach with the canned "I'm not getting involved; and Oh, I totally understand, but I'm not going to take sides," etc. Barf.
Newsflash - I typically have a side.
Most people do.
Accept it.
It's just likely not the side anyone wants to be on. (Muah ha ha ha...)
And to get back to what I mentioned earlier, if we were guys, we'd get mad, punch each other, and then go have a beer.
Isn't that how we were all designed? Why can't we just do this?!
But we're too caught up in this battle of the 'right thing' versus the 'in thing' and it's someplace between "oh no she didn't, I'm gonna post this on Facebook" and "see if I invite her to my bachelorette party."
When I say women, I mean, WOMEN.
Adults.
Real ones.
Ones who are moms, professionals, caregivers, wives, girlfriends, counselors, public servants...Yep...we're caught up in the B.S. of gossip which gave us a bad name way back when when the equivalent to whore was 'hussy' and 'floozie' and dried up old bag equated to 'old marm.'
You can bet your ass Ma Bell stirred the shit back then.
"Elsie, you will not believe what just came through about the Gilberts' third boy. He has a boil on his butt and you know what that means!"
You get my point.
And then we sit around with our martinis and rum-n-cokes and cranberry vodkas (or if you're me, a bottle of red) and wonder why the hell men go on 'man dates,' wanna fly to Vegas; wanna spend hours in the garage or studio; or have 'boys night."
It's because we are horribly mean to one another...ON PURPOSE.
I don't get it and I'm a woman too. And we target the women who are successful and happy most when we're hormonal and feeling sour. Self-improvement, ladies; self-improvement.
I'm not saying when we're mad or feeling catty that we should just go up and swat the offender and take off - rather, how about a conversation or a discussion, or even a direct argument to close the lid on this stuff? So she said something about me behind my back, well, I want to hear it from her, not ten other people with a version they found on the web and edited for content!
The root of our anger - our inability to communicate without a) fearing hurting someone's feelings and b) wanting to hurt someone's feelings. Ultimately, we do both. Honestly, we just don't want the rap of someone who 'did that' to someone else so we sugar coat, lie, talk around, and back-stab to avoid 'blame' or retribution.
WHY?!
It destroys our ability to trust each other and it places us squarely in the patriarchal conundrum we had before - reliant on approval and support from men who most times, can get along all on their own.
Perhaps we are the weaker sex sometimes?
On the other hand, if you had your period 12 times a year for what feels like three weeks at a time or have experienced childbirth (or both), well you might be pissy too.
Laugh a little. This stuff we do sometimes can be funny.
:p
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