Girl Pushups

When I was in elementary school, all the kids in my grade had to do what was called “The President’s Challenge”. It included multiple exercises, such as running, sit ups, pushups, pull ups, ect. The girls and boys would be split into two sections, and then we would do the exercises in our separate groups.
One thing I remember very clearly, was that the girls were always given the option of doing “girl pushups” instead of traditional ones. At the time, this didn’t phase me. I was much too young to wonder about the sexism behind the name.
If you are not aware, this image shows what a girl pushup looks like:

Screen Shot 2016-04-14 at 10.17.31 AM
And this image shows what a regular (or male) pushup looks like:

Screen Shot 2016-04-14 at 10.17.38 AM
Doing a pushup on your knees definitely takes away some of the pain while preforming this task. Naming it a “girl” pushup basically insinuates that girls need the help, or that girls could not complete regular pushups.
I had all women teachers, not one male teacher at my elementary school. In fact, that only male that worked there was the janitor; but I still was taught that men were stronger.
My female gym teacher would not give the “girl pushup” option to the boys, and if a boy could not do as many pushups as one of the girls, we would all laugh. That’s just how we were raised. It was funny if a girl was stronger than a boy; because it didn’t mean the girl was strong, it just meant that the boy was weak.
One blog, Unapologetically Female had an article written by a woman named Tracey, talking about this very issue. She wrote, “Designating exercise guidelines by gender rather than by ability promoted the message that ALL girls are weaker than ALL boys. ALL the time. Any exceptions to that rule were just that — exceptional.” If this image is promoted at such a young age, it can really alter both the boys and the girls perceptions of themselves and the world. It screams the idea that women are physically inferior and it blows my mind that in a school of all female authority, this was allowed.
On another blog, an article was posted, titled, “Real Pushups vs. Girly Pushups”. The author, Maggy, was advocating for women to learn how to do real pushups, instead of settling for what men have been saying is our own take on one. She wrote, “There’s no reason that women can’t do just as many push-ups as men if they are properly trained.”
So maybe, if women were taught as they were growing up that they could be just as strong and as powerful as they wanted to be, more females would have this strength. Pushups are not an easy task for either gender, but when given the option at such a young age to back out of the difficult assessment, these girls will never learn how to be strong like boys will. From the age of six, I was taught that I was weaker than boys, and that was ok. I was taught that if I didn’t want to try for a real pushup, that was ok. Contradictory to that, from the age of six, the boys in my class were taught that they were capable of doing a real pushup, and that they had to try until they could complete the task.
I did not believe in feminism until I was in high school. I thought, “Yeah, boys are physically stronger, they’re better at math, they’re taller, they’re the head of the house.” I did not care. It was the life I had been taught since I was a little kid.
It was not until I got to high school, got to really know some boys, and started to realize that in no way could this entire gender be superior to another.
There are going to be girls that are stronger than boys and there are going to be boys that are stronger than girls. That is just genetics and how hard the person is willing to train. So maybe instead of teaching girls that they don’t have the capability to be as strong as a guy, (by calling the weaker pushup a girl pushup) teach the idea that everyone has different strengths, and we all have the power inside of us to accomplish something if we work for it.
Sources:
http://www.blogher.com/real-pushups-vs-girly-pushups
http://www.unapologeticallyfemale.com/2009/05/my-antifeminist-childhood-girl-push-ups.html
http://usedwigs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/pushups-370×250.jpg

Response to “I am Not a Feminist and That is Ok”

Recently, I read an article on the Odyssey that was titled, “I Am not a Feminist, and That is Ok”. (http://theodysseyonline.com/wku/it-is-okay-not-to-be-feminist/344023) A woman wrote the article, so I was interested to read it and see what she had to say. My feelings after reading the article were mostly sadness and anger.
The woman starts by saying that whenever she tells people she isn’t a feminist, they gang up on her and try to explain feminism, and she doesn’t want to hear it, because she knows what feminism is and does not agree.
So now, I am really perplexed, because if a woman knows what feminism is, then I do not see why she would be against it. I read on.
She continues to state that she believes in equal pay, equal opportunity, and that if she were living in the twentieth century, she would be a feminist. However, she says, “We are currently in what is called the fourth wave of feminism. I don’t want the things that these feminists are fighting for.” She then says that a feminist will tell you it is not ok to change your last name for marriage, not ok to be a stay at home mom, and it is not ok to like cooking.
Now I’m just baffled because I cannot believe how ignorant this woman is. I’m sorry if that is harsh, but if she has access to a computer, which she clearly does since she wrote this article, she has access to Google. Google would prove about everything she is saying to be false.
Sure, you may come across people that identify as feminists and say that they don’t think a woman should change her last name, or cook, or be a stay at home mom; but that does not define feminism. No, this lady can google the definition of feminism and become informed that all it means is equality among the genders, something that she even said she believes in.
To critique her work even further, we are in what is called the third wave of feminism, not the fourth. A feminist would say it is ok to be a stay at home mom, if you want to be that, you simply should not feel like that is the only role you can preform. The same goes for the changing of the last name, if the woman wants to change it, she can. The point of feminism is giving women the choice to do what they want with their life and body instead of being forced to succumb to a cultural norm. If the woman chooses to partake in that norm, because she sincerely enjoys that role, than that is ok.
I understand that if you are a middle class white female in the Western world, the need for feminism may not seem as apparent to you. However, in other parts of the world, women have not made so much progress. Furthermore, if you believe in equality, you believe in feminism by definition- who cares what the name is? At the time feminism was created, it was needed for women to push forward to be as equal as men, that’s why the name is female-based. I don’t think there needs to be a huge fuss over it now; if people have the time to write long articles about how they disagree with feminism, they should have the time to search the definition and find that it does not mean man-hater, but equal rights activist.
Reading this article made me cringe and feel pity for the woman who publicly humiliated herself. I don’t think she is a bad or dumb person, just ignorant. Some hope was restored when I read this article, (http://theodysseyonline.com/denver/youre-not-feminist-and-heres-why-that-isnt-really-okay/370591), firing back.

Sources:

  1. http://theodysseyonline.com/wku/it-is-okay-not-to-be-feminist/344023
  2. http://theodysseyonline.com/denver/youre-not-feminist-and-heres-why-that-isnt-really-okay/370591

Slut Shaming

One thing that has become apparent to me, as I’m growing up, is that the world is full of grey. Math and Science oriented people are blessed with being submerged in a world where everything fits, everything makes sense. However, my brain never seems to understand the black and white nature of those subjects and all I can ever focus on is the in between.
Right from wrong is never easily distinguishable, there are always circumstances, there are always opinions filtering through, and there is never one story.
This “grey” applies to sexism on monumental levels as we, as human beings, try to decipher how we can treat everyone equally, while still recognizing the differences between us.
Slut shaming has been a thing since, well, the birth of societies I’d assume. The general theory is that girls should be, excuse me, tight. Girls should not be easy, because easy girls are sluts, and no one ends up loving the slut. Boys, on the other hand, will be boys. A boy can’t be a slut.
Obviously this is completely wrong, girls think about sex and have crazy hormones in their teens just as boys do, but these facts are commonly ignored. As adolescents approach high school, the word gets a lot more use. Sex is extremely common at that age, which can be seen in this statistic given by The Washington Post, “The latest figures show that more than one-half of high school seniors (61.1%) have had sexual intercourse at least once”.
Ashamedly, the first half of my high school life, I slut shamed.
Now, I did not double standard my reaction. I also disliked men who slept around. I considered any human who did that to be tarnishing something that I believed should be valued. This was not a religious belief, but my own thought that when you have sex with someone you are physically showing them the truest form of yourself, which is not something that should be taken lightly. Why would I want to be around someone who gave himself or herself to others so easily? He or she clearly doesn’t value the loyalties and intimacies that I do.
But I changed my mind, as I often do in this world of grey, halfway through high school. Now, you have to understand that I was tiny until my sophomore year. I was a late bloomer and could have passed for a eleven-year old at age fifteen; and kids made fun of me for it. I was labeled as a prude, because I hadn’t done so much as kiss a boy at that point. I promise you, this was not because I didn’t want to, this was because no one had ever tried.
The Huffington Post wrote an article about slut shaming where this was said, “If you are a heterosexual girl or young woman, you are damned if you don’t and damned if you do. If you refrain from any expression of sexiness, you may be written off as irrelevant and unfeminine. But if you follow the guidelines, you run the risk of being judged, shamed and policed.”
So I wasn’t a slut; but I was a prude, and I was mad. I hated “sluts”, male and female. I made fun of them. I said that I had values, that I’d never do what they did; but the truth is, I just didn’t have the opportunity yet.
Then summer came, my body changed, and boys noticed me. (dumb boys should have noticed me before, but whatever) I got my first kiss, my first boyfriend, my first a lot of things; but since I had a long-term boyfriend, slut shaming was never a worry.
Until I broke up with him. I was a junior at this point, no longer the anti-social freshmen, and I wasn’t sure how to act. I started to like a new boy.
My best guy friend told me that if I didn’t have sex with the guy, he wouldn’t like me, because he would find someone else who would…preform. My best girl friend told me that if I had sex with the guy and wasn’t in love with him, I would look like a whore, and I’d never know when a guy liked me for me and not for sex. I was also told by both that I had to be aware of the guy’s history, because even if I was not a whore, he might have slept with a lot of girls, so I would look bad for making that list.
It was a whole lot of pressure, a whole lot of public opinion, for something that I’ve always valued as being intimate. I suddenly realized, that who anyone slept with was the business of the two people involved, and no one else.
I don’t know the reasons the girl in my grade lost her virginity so young and has already slept with more guys than I’ve ever kissed, tripled. I don’t know why one of my guy friends went through a phase where he slept with eight separate girls in a row.
However, I do know that the girl and the guy are good people. I do know they are honest and kind. I do know that they’ve made me a happier person on multiple occasions.
I let myself judge others based on facts I shouldn’t even have been aware of. The facts were that they had sex, but the reasoning behind it was the grey, and that is a grey I will never understand, because I am not a part of it.
I still think sex is deep, and to be shared with someone seriously special, but some people find twenty special people and some people find one. Other people don’t define sex the way I do.
So now, I am against slut shaming, male or female, because slut is simply a dumb, hurtful word. People will do what they wish, I will hold myself to my own standards, and I will not fixate on other people’s intimate choices.
That, in my eyes, is not only how to treat men and women equally; but also, respectfully.

Sources:
http://www.education.com/reference/article/adolescent-sexuality/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leora-tanenbaum/the-truth-about-slut-shaming_b_7054162.html

Curvy Barbie Dolls

There has been a lot of hype about the new “curvy” Barbie doll that has hit stores recently, and the reactions vary dramatically. On one end, there have been women for decades that have been saying that barbie dolls are not a toy little girls should be given. On the other, there are people who say that it’s a doll, not real life, and it should be treated as such. From my perspective, I don’t think that Barbie is the reason for girls suffering from eating disorders or aspiring to be a too-thin, too-fake woman. I think that Barbie is a pretty doll that was fun to play with when I was younger. I never once thought about the fact that she was so tiny. All I thought about was the imaginary world I had created for her. Her looks weren’t so important. I do, however, see the latter side of this argument.
My grandma, for instance, refused to let my mother have a barbie doll because the style was so unrealistic. It has been said that, “a typical Barbie doll stands at 11.5 inches, which, at a 1/6 scale, would make her 5 feet 9 inches tall. Her vital statistics have been estimated at 36 inches (bust), 18 inches (waist) and 33 inches (hips). According to a study by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, she would lack the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for a woman to menstruate.” To give young girls this doll as a role model, is absurd. Of course there are angry women out there, mad at the creators of Barbie for highlighting unattainable standards for woman and especially for targeting such a young age group. This is inevitable given the emphasis on the “perfect body” stereotypes, blonde, skinny, nice chest, blue eyes, perfect make up, long legs, nice butt; almost every feminist will stand up against something that promotes a this as a body norm.
So if you were to put it that way, that Barbie is being used as a role model for young girls, then yes, I do agree that Barbie should not promote this irregular body as a body norm. I am against young girls being taught that they need to be tall, blonde, and skinny to be pretty. But I do not think that Barbie dolls are role models. I don’t even think that having Barbie dolls exist creates this problem.
Here’s why: there are tons of different types of dolls out there. Tons. I enjoyed the fact that my Barbie was pretty, we are all attracted to pretty things; but, I also thought my American Girl dolls were pretty, I thought my Polly Pockets were pretty, I thought my mom’s old dolls made of felt were pretty. I just liked to play with dolls. I liked to imagine worlds with drama and excitement and fantasize about an entirely different life. I escaped into my room for hours and could become a totally different person. I was not absorbed with wanting to look like a Barbie. I have never in my life looked at a Barbie doll and wished I looked like that. I have, however, looked at models and been jealous. I have looked at girls in my grade and been jealous. But I have never been jealous of a doll, because it’s was always just that, a doll.
Honestly, I think the idea of a curvy Barbie is all with good intent. However, the curvy Barbie is just going to draw the attention of the girls who play with them to the body sizes of the different barbies. Skinny Barbie’s skinniness is now emphasized and so are curvy Barbie’s curves. Whereas when I played with Barbies, I really couldn’t care less about her body shape. Now, the different body shapes will be accounted for when these kids choose which doll they will be playing with.

Sources:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/b/barbie_doll/index.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/business/barbie-now-in-more-shapes.html?_r=0

Feminism

I cannot begin to count the number of times that someone has said to me, “Oh, you’re a feminist? That’s so dumb.” I also can’t begin to count the number of women that have said that to me. Whenever this happens, I hope that these people are just ignorant about the definition of feminism and aren’t actually telling me that they think equality among genders is “dumb”.
When I was in elementary school, I thought feminism was dumb, too. I remember being in the fifth grade and listening to a girl in my class give a speech on feminism. I had no idea what the concept was at the time and I had the belief that sure, things had been messed up in the past, but now the world is a fair place. Consequently, I thought my classmate was annoying and searching for reasons to complain. Only once I grew up and became more educated, did I realize how wrong I was.
Not only is feminism still an important concept today, but for people to bash it is, to me, extremely inconsiderate of those who came before us. Without feminism, I would not be in college, I would not be allowed to vote, I would be the property of my father until I was passed on to my husband, I would work solely in the house, I would not be allowed to legally own that house, and I would not be allowed to file for a divorce on my own. These are only some of the gifts of citizenship that our past women have given us. I think that people tend to forget this and discount all the effort it took to get here.
That being said, the world is still not an equal place. I am not sure if there ever will be equality, because some human beings simply feel superior based on whatever aspects they have that other’s don’t. Specifically, females are still fighting to be treated equally to men.
There are obviously still issues such as the wage gap, there aren’t enough women in power positions, and societal gender norms that visualize women as inferior to men. But my biggest issue is with the objectification of women and with some women’s lack of knowledge and care for the subject of equality.
I see it every single day. Women are judged, based on every tiny detail of their appearance. Women have to shave their legs, women have to shave their arms, women have to wear make up…Technically, women do not have to do any of this, but trust me, it’s frowned upon not to, and it will make life more difficult, because these are what’s known as body norms.
Yes, in the West it is a body norm for a women to wear make up, shave her legs, and shave her arm pits after she has hit puberty. It is 100% normal for a women to be hairless everywhere besides her head and face. However, has anyone ever stopped to think how strange it is that we have a norm for our bodies that is not even naturally normal?
Of course, men have norms in the West that aren’t natural either; such as circumcision. But the extent to what the female body norms are, exceed the males by quite a lot.
I am not here to argue that both men and women don’t face the conflict of body shaming, because even though it is more prevalent among women, men too feel the pressure to have a nice body. But I also wouldn’t necessarily consider that a horrible thing, because having a healthy figure is something that can be, and should be, naturally done.
If there is one thing that I truly hope for people, it is that they are educated on the definition of feminism and they are aware of all the good it has brought. The definition is equality among the genders, and I believe that anyone who is morally right, will say that they believe in this concept. I know the word has some negative stigma attached to it, and some people don’t want to be identified as a “radical feminist who hates men”, but that is not what a feminist is. The definition is purely equality, just a fact; and simply because some people who define themselves as feminist go further with the concept than what one may think is still true to equality, does not change the definition of the word.