OH my word (that may be the most gossipy, valley-girl sounding start to anything I've ever written...I swear my nails just grew longer and turned bubblegum pink, and if I laugh, it will sound like my head is empty). In these moments, I really want to close the door to the world of facebook because I lose respect for people constantly, and learn more than I ever wanted to know about fragments of society I normally do not encounter.
Cyclepassion. I don't know how I've managed to be oblivious to this when I am both female and have been riding a bike for a few years now. I'd like to believe it's because I keep the kind of company who doesn't go searching for trash like this and is really disgusted by it, but I'm sure some of them do, it just doesn't come up.
Cyclepassion=girls who have made massive achievements in the world of women's cycling suddenly deciding that they aren't powerful enough/cool enough/accomplished enough/worth enough so they take off most of their clothes (or all I think in some cases) and pose with bikes for a calendar. That was a bit of a value-infused description. Here: it's pro female cyclists who pose with bikes while wearing lingerie (or nude). Awesome...so, women's cycling is finally building momentum, gaining respect, etc, and what do the "stars" do? Take the focus OFF of their athletic accomplishments and onto their sexuality...which in case they've missed it, is one of the most enslaving places you can possibly put yourself as a female, and have lowered the respectability of women's cycling. It's really tragic that girls in general rely on their appearance, specifically whatever they define as "sexiness" to gain some sort of edge or confidence or respect, and only more tragic that while women want their sports endeavors to be as highly respected as men's sports, they lower themselves to the level of sex objects and ruin any chance of reaching the initial goal. Really? Are they that weak minded? That easily deceived?
I'm surely capable of lowering myself to those standards and feeling somewhat convinced that it's crucial to my success on all fronts to be "hot", but thankfully, overall I do know how ridiculous that is. I can see and somewhat feel where these girls are coming from, because our society has shaped us to think sexiness is a source of power and likely, the most important source of power we have as women. We're all told this, we all struggle with it. I guess I just figure most women will hit a point when they grow up and realize how false this is? Even if they do continue to struggle with it.
Women tend to blame this on men, and I see that factor. But blaming someone else also means that you do not have the ability to change the situation-it's their fault, their doing, you're just the victim and there's nothing you can do about it. This equates to being powerless. SO...lets get this straight, we, as women, pursue the flaunting of our sexuality in attempt to gain power, while we simultaneously claim that men are really the powerful ones that have created this situation in the first place and we're subject to their misuse of us. I'm rereading that statement 5 times to see if it makes sense...it's hard to follow, but in essence, it's driving home the point in my mind that we're whining men have complete control over how our sexuality is used, and yet we choose that route in order to gain control/equality with them...that seems like a really inefficient route to take.
Interestingly, I'm not a women's lib fan, I'm not into encouraging women to find their worth in gaining "equality", whatever that looks like, with men, I'm not out to lead a revolt against male dominance. I'm more into calling women to figure out how to sift through the mounds of false information we've been given on who we are to be as women, and finding the truth, the beauty, the freedom in that. There are falsities coming from generally every force in society, from Playboy to churches to corporate powerhouses. I don't think this is new information to any female out there....but I would argue that 99% of us don't feel like taking the risk of figuring out what our true design is and we'd rather just pick the most sensible looking pre-packaged option we come across, even if there are countless examples to suggest this doesn't lead to happiness or success or fulfillment. Options provide us with the flexibility to engage in our femininity in different ways depending on where we are in life, who are friends are-basically, however it works to our advantage. Sadly, options don't encourage commitment to yourself in a consistent, truthful, reliable way, and they don't really challenge us to be vulnerable enough to identify truth from fiction.
Well...sorry to vent publicly about this..just saw it on facebook and wanted to scream...it's barely public because I'm obviously not a world famous blogger...oh well, there's always cyclepassion 2012 if I can make a massive recovery from having a baby in May and end up being "drafted" by a pro-team by August, right? yikes.
No comments:
Post a Comment