Every time I go on Pinterest, I gag at all the overly sentimental, flowery love images they ram down our throats. There are so many overly emotional messages there that say things like: “I’m not as strong as I pretend to be” or “Im the kind of girl who tells the cops I ran into my boyfriend’s fist because I am a Southern girl”.
I understand that these little quotes are supposed to appeal to the idea of femininity, but the message seems antiquated and a little sexist.
I just finished re-reading a book called Gone, Girl, by Gillian Flynn. The book is utterly amazing and something everyone should read. One of the ideas it toys with is that we act a certain way when we meet a mate-but our true selves eventually come out. Women may act more docile, and men may be more chivalrous when they are courting someone, but eventually the lazy, burping, farting, overly-sensitive sides of us come out, and oftentimes that isn’t pretty.
Women in this day and age are strong, dynamic, forward thinking leaders, and the idea that any of them would want to grow up to be someone’s doormat is offensive to me. If I could rewrite this message it would end like this:
I am the type of girl who is going to run free until she finds someone that can keep up. The kind of girl who won’t settle for mediocrity, and doesn’t want to date a little bitch. The kind of girl who deserves the best, and is willing to wait for it.
After reading this I felt two conflicting emotions. On one hand I claim that these quotes just embody emotions that many people have felt in some situations. With this sentence I want to emphasize that such emotions should be temporary, and apply to their respective situations. In response to the first quote, I think any manifestation of strength in women is a good thing, whether it’s pretending or not. It still takes strength to fake it!
I don’t possess any positive thoughts towards the southern girl quote. I’m from California, so as you can imagine, the south is a world away and I know admittedly little to nothing about the culture. I can say with complete confidence that quotes like these oppress women. They imply that you’re not a southern girl if you stand up for yourself. To even remotely imply that enduring physical abuse is just a mere sign of politeness that women are all obligated to do is completely ridiculous.
The last chunk of purple text is justified by my reasoning in my first paragraph. I think that there are times in which we feel we would go to the moon and back for that special person in our life. I think that this quote manifests the complete mindless bliss we can feel. Once again I view these quotes as momentary (is that a word?), and that as comfort increases in the relationship, “the other side” of us emerges, and while the amount of care we have for the other person doesn’t change, our willingness to do anything might decrease a little…