As a Retrospect Oldie
The 1980s and 1990s felt more like transition years to 2000 and, furthermore, probably what 2010s will turn out to be. We had the 60s, which was the year of feminism, and the 70s with heightened social diversity. While many political and socioanthropological advances were made in the following two decades, there didn’t seem to be a change in phase for what our we have in store for these recent ones.
Is it really wise to let sex become an expectation to our children, and, while I’d hope not, our grandchildren?
Being brought up primarily by women, I’ve developed a sense of androphobia in that it’s a realm I don’t necessarily feel comfortable in. I was comfortable to associate myself as a friend of a group of girls rather than a group of guys, despite being pressured to do vice versa.
When I was growing up in elementary school, I really began to feel that push when I was in around 3rd grade – that was when I moved and switched elementary schools. Before then, I would hop hopscotch and skip skipping ropes, but I never took a liking to army figurines or hockey like the other boys would. This would give you an instinct that I was more effiminate in this case, wouldn’t it? In the context of being more easily empathic and open-minded, then you’d be correct. If you’re thinking of playing with Barbies and pretending to go shopping, that wouldn’t be “effiminate” – that’s just how women are being portrayed. It’s not a “woman’s quality”. And likewise, I hated dolls and shopping with a passion, and so did those girls. They liked singing, dancing, Double-Dutch and baseball, just as I did (with the exception of baseball, because I hated sports). The boys would laugh, and families would question. My own family even questioned it.
Still to this day, I say “fuck them”. No one’s going to dictate who I associate with, and not even my family should dare to bend it around. Call me gay, call me girly, or even call me a “cloaked woman beater” – they too were human, and they were kids just as I was. Only a pretentious simpleton would try to “predict” me based on one simple fact – in which case, these people are not worth taking serious anyways.
That was 15 years ago, and already it’s a tea-stained papyrus of records.
I was watching a documentary short about hypersexualisation of young girls (and admittedly provoked my drive to write an entry), and the simple notion of awareness really gave me a kick in the groin. The fact I wasn’t completely aware of the implications and even the observation is absolutely disgraceful – you can’t notice something that becomes imprinted as “acceptable”. This is a fancy way of me saying that business interests really fuck up the developed society, and advocates of the cause in any way are scum floating on the metropolis sewage filtrate.
Of course, there are more pressing concerns, but that’s exactly it – we’re ignoring awareness into equally grave social issues with this bullshit, when this is probably the most manufactured of them all. Unfortunately, this kind of attention is good – it helps pay for the luxury bills and the new Mercedes for the new product detailer.
I think it’s fair enough to say I’m utterly disgusted.