Convo from Tarmaoo7, a man in his 20s who preys on innocent underage girls over the Internet, meets them IRL, then has sex with them and gives them STDS:

Parents and culture shape how we grow up and who we become. We are taught manners, to do well in school, and the difference between what is right and wrong. However, not everything we learn has a positive effect on our self-identity. In most cases, children are taught to conform to what is "normal," because if you're not normal you will be rejected from society and won't be successful. One of the things we are taught from birth is to act according to what gender we are. Knowing one's self-identity isn't as easy for women as it is for men. Women are confused about who they really are, because sometimes how they are contradicts what society says women should be. Sandra Lee Bartky's Femininity and Domination, Kate Chopin's The Awakening, and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart show how gender roles negatively affect women by oppressing them and dividing their self-identity.
Children are taught from the beginning that boys and girls are different - not just by their bodies, but by their appearance, personalities, and interests. Parents teach their sons to be like every other boy – have short hair, wear boy clothes, and play sports, video games, and with action figures. Daughters are taught to be opposite of boys - to have longer hair, wear girl clothes, and play with dolls. Boys like what is tough, and girls like what is pretty. Bartky asks, "What if, just once, I send a doll to my nephew and an erector set to my niece?" (Bartky, 19). If she did that, the children are mostly likely to be confused, maybe even insulted that they got a toy that isn't meant for their gender. If boys and girls don't act as they're supposed to, boys are called weak or sissy, and girls are called unladylike or tomboys (and when they're older, they may be seen as unattractive). To avoid being different, children grow up learning how they are supposed to act, and they learn to like it.
To accept yourself as a girl and act how a girl should act is already admitting the fact that you are the inferior sex. Being girly is a negative thing for both girls and boys; being manly is a positive thing for boys, but not for girls. So women can't be too girly or too manly; either way, they're looked down on. It is true that people can be sexist about men as well as women, but it happens less often and is less degrading. Men have always had power and control; women have had to work their way up to get as far as they have, and even still they are treated as if they are inferior to men.
The media enforces these gender differences by displaying the three things Bartky says fragment the self - stereotypes, cultural domination, and sexual objectification. By fragmentation, she means "the splitting of the whole person into parts of a person which, in stereotyping, may take the form of a war between a 'true' and 'false' self—or, in sexual objectification, the form of an often coerced and degrading identification of a person with her body" (Bartky, 23). This fragmentation of the self creates an inferiority complex and low self-esteem, which negatively effects the actions and values of women. Everyday, everywhere, women are confronted with the subtle reminders that they're not good enough the way they are – from the television commercials that advertise beauty products to the fashion and sex tips in magazines.
Stereotypes divide the self by creating a well known belief about certain types of people who are led to believe the stereotype is true just because everyone else thinks it is. The stereotypes degrade and depreciate women, making them feel inferior. Some women will never realize their full potential, because they don’t bother doing some independent or aggressive things for fear of contradicting the stereotype that tells them how they are supposed to be. For example, people always make jokes about dumb blondes – always female blondes, never male ones. Many blonde girls believe that they are stupid just because of the color of their hair; some enforce and encourage the stereotype, intentionally acting ditzy to gain attention or to be funny. In addition, many women who aren’t blonde dye their hair so that they become blonde, especially the famous ones such as actresses and singers. Why is this? Is blonde more beautiful in the eyes of men? If so, why do men like that? Do men prefer stupid, submissive women who can be easily controlled? Do other women want the attention that blondes get, even if it means making themselves look stupid in the process?
Cultural domination divides the self because everything in society is sexist – jobs, language, activities, etc. It's harder for a woman to work her way up in life than it is for a man. Being aggressive isn't an admirable female trait. Women feel they have to "talk like a woman" and "act like a woman" in order to fit in to society. Society doesn’t approve of manly women. Women get lower wages than men for the same job and have to work harder to get into a high political office. Most women wouldn’t bother running for president, even if they wanted to, because they would know that more than half the nation (most men, and some women who believe the stereotype of their inferiority) wouldn’t vote for a woman. A woman is seen as a sex symbol, not as a symbol of intelligence or power like men are. Yet in the media, most television shows have women as the smart characters, and men as the stupid, fat, and lazy characters. That's because stupid men are funny; stupid women are just stupid.
Sexual objectification divides the self by making women think that everything they are revolves around their appearance. Personality doesn't matter; all that matters is beauty. Women constantly have to worry about how they look. They're subconsciously taught that their bodies aren't good enough the way they are; they have to cream their "body with a thousand creams, each designed to act against a different deficiency, oil it, pumice it, powder it, shave it, pluck it, depilate it, deodorize it, ooze it into just the right foundation, reduce it overall through Spartan dieting or else pump it up with silicon" (Bartky, 40). They basically have to change everything that they are, because if they don't, they aren't beautiful. Men don't have to do any of that in order for women to think they're sexy; television commercials advertise beauty products for women, but never for men. Some might argue that it's sexist that women have a wider variety of clothes than men do. That's because men don’t need clothes to be beautiful like women do. Apparently, men can be attractive in anything, but women have to wear certain kinds of clothes – often tight and revealing – in order to be attractive. Women have to constantly put themselves on display. Why do they advertise their body? They do it to get a boyfriend or husband. Many women think they cannot live without a man, and so they must do everything possible to make themselves and men think they are attractive. Not only are girls brainwashed by society into thinking their bodies are deficient the way they are, the girls learn to enjoy fixing their imperfect bodies; they are "infatuated with an inferiorized body" (Bartky, 40). "The woman unable to leave home in the morning without 'putting on her face' will never discover the beauty, character, and expressiveness her own face already possesses" (Bartky, 42).
In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the main character Edna realizes this "indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish" (Chopin, 14). Her husband, although generous with money and delicacies, tries to control her. He wants to keep her as the weak, dependant woman every wife is supposed to be; when she starts becoming independent, he thinks she is mentally unbalanced. It's not like a wife to disobey her husband, move out and live on her own, stay home from social gatherings, and not worry if her children have fevers. Edna already was not a mother-woman; mother-women were "women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels" (Chopin, 16). Just the opposite, Edna wants to break free from her husband's control over her and be her own person. But doing things in "secret and solitude" is unladylike and "openly criticized" (Chopin, 19). She is trapped in a life in which she feels she doesn't belong. As Bartky would say, Edna struggles with a fragmented self. Her outer self conforms to the activities of the women around her. Her inner self wants to be free of those pretenses; she feels her life to be lacking something. She wants to do her own thing, make her own choices, take chances, and live life not according to how others think she should live it. "She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world" (Chopin, 96). In the end, however, Edna commits suicide because she is not strong enough to overcome the role she is expected to play: "The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth" (Chopin, 138).
Our world culture of men being the dominant sex is reflected in other novels as well. For example, the African clan in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart allows husbands to beat their wives; sons are expected to be strong in both body and mind like their fathers, and daughters are expected to mirror their mothers by obeying men and staying weak and childlike all the way through adulthood. The only strong woman in the entire clan is Chielo, "the priestess of Agbala, the Oracle of the Hills and Caves;" when she takes Ekwefi’s daughter and carries her on her back so easily and for so long, Ekwefi thinks to herself, "Chielo was not a woman that night" (Achebe, 107). So even someone strong, obviously a woman, is not considered a woman because she is strong. Likewise, men are not considered men when they are weak. Okonkwo wishes his and Ekwefi's daughter was a boy, and he is disappointed in his son Nwoye for having "too much of his mother in him" (Achebe, 66); when Nwoye hears that Ikemefuna was to be taken away, he "burst into tears, whereupon his father beat him heavily" (Achebe, 57).
Sexism is very similar to racism, as they both oppress and victimize other human beings who are thought to be inferior. Victims of sexism and racism both have a "fragmented self." They are both confused about what to think, because inside they feel that they are unjustly treated, while the white male tells them they are privileged and shouldn't be complaining. Decades ago, African Americans were enslaved, and women weren't allowed to vote or wear pants, not to mention the way women are treated in other countries such as the Middle East. Shouldn't they be grateful for what they have now? These days, the world is probably more sexist than it is racist. Whites siding with the blacks on their protest movements in the 60s were looked down on; but now that African Americans are for the most part equal to every other American, people look back on those times and sympathize with the African Americans, and wonder how whites could ever be so unjustly cruel to someone who is just as much a human as anyone else is. However, the movement of sexism is still going. Racism used to be normal and accepted, and now it’s bad; sexism is still accepted by both men and women. This is obvious in the way that most men and women look down on the feminists. Maybe decades into the future, people will look back on sexism and wonder, "How could men treat women like that, and how could women stand for it?" Or maybe things will never change, because not enough women believe that they are being oppressed and victimized.
Not all women conform to gender roles, but very few don’t. People fear being different, because they want to be liked, not outcasted. I, however, have always been different; not conforming to gender roles is no exception.
All my life I have done things my way and only my way. Even in my early childhood, I questioned authority and why people did the things they did. I didn't try to be different to rebel; I did what I wanted because I didn't want to conform; I didn't want to do things simply to appease other people's expectations of me. I don't pretend to like things like cussing, drugs, and sex just because all the others kids around me do. Nor did I pretend to like the girly things I was expected to like just because I was a girl. My stubbornness to not conform caused me to become my own person. However, there are consequences that go along with being different.
When I was in first grade, all the little girls wore dresses on picture day because that was what their mothers instructed them to do, and those little girls would never think of disobeying them. I made my own decisions, picked out my own clothes, wore my ordinary turtle-neck and stretchy pants. The girls thought I was weird for not dressing up. I hated dresses because you couldn't run in them and had to sit properly. The girls spent every recess playing hand clapping games and making flower bracelets out of weeds while I played with the boys. My grandma's old neighbor's son Benjamin thought I was weird for liking Ninja Turtles and wanting to play his video games. "Girls aren't supposed to!" he said. When I was in fourth grade, boys I passed to get to my teacher's classroom thought it strange when they burped in my face in attempt to disgust me but all I said was, "Nice burp, what'd it taste like?" I liked frogs, bugs, dogs, and cars -- so not like a girl! My Barbies did kidnappings, not picnics!
In my more recent years, the most unladylike thing people object to is not shaving and not wearing makeup. "Don't worry, she will when she's older," my uncle says. "You don't want to look like a tarantula do you?" my father says disapprovingly. Men don't shave, so why should I? Men have more hair than women do; they should be the ones to shave. My father also told me once, "Lose ten pounds and you'll be like the models." It’s like all a woman is is an object that strives to be beautiful in the eyes of men, when they already are beautiful the way they are and only cheapen themselves by participating in society's expectations. It disgusts me, and I refuse to conform.
Men aren't the only ones to blame for sexism; women are just as much to blame as men. Women only enforce their stupidity and weakness by allowing themselves to be treated like this. I remember a lot of times when my female friends in high school made sexist comments without knowing it. One of them always made blonde jokes -- always about female blondes -- when she herself was a blonde. My other friend and I argued about makeup; she insisted that her sister had to wear blush and keep her hair short because she didn't look right otherwise. Another one of my friends repeatedly told me I should grow out my hair and wear contacts. My grandmother constantly pestered me about getting a boyfriend, as if life was not complete without a man!
Being different has its price. Because of my refusal to conform, I haven’t been liked by many people. I used to be loud and speak my mind when I was little, but after years of being made fun of, I learned to be withdrawn and keep my opinions to myself. Despite the consequences of being who I really am and not conforming, I still hold strong to my opinions no matter what other people think or do to try to change me.
Most women though, aren't so stubborn to not conform. They give in to the gender roles they grow up around. Women see the feminine models in the media and try their whole lives to mirror her, to be the perfect women society wants them to be. Sooner or later, they believe that this false self-identity is who they really are; women reject any chance of contradicting their femininity. They teach their daughters to be just like them, and the cycle of oppression continues.

Works Cited
Bartky, Sandra Lee. Femininity and Domination. New York, NY: Routledge, Chapman, and Hall, Inc., 1990.
Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York, NY: Avon Books, 1972.
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1994.

Do you deny that sexism is big problem today? If so, then read this article about Lorena Bobbitt.


"Stupid Girl" by Pink Stupid girl, stupid girls, stupid girls
Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back
Porno paparazzi girl, I don't wanna be a stupid girl

Go to Fred Segal, you'll find them there
Laughing loud so all the little people stare
Looking for a daddy to pay for the champagne
(Drop a name)
What happened to the dream of a girl president
She's dancing in the video next to 50 Cent
They travel in packs of two and three
With their itsy bitsy doggies and their teeny-weeny tees
Where, oh where, have the smart people gone?
Oh where, oh where could they be?

Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back
Porno paparazzi girl, I don't wanna be a stupid girl
Maybe if I act like that, flipping my blonde hair back
Push up my bra like that, I don't wanna be a stupid girl

(Break it down now)
The Disease is growing, it's epidemic
I'm scared that there ain't a cure
The world believes it and I'm going crazy
I cannot take any more
I'm so glad that I'll never fit in
That will never be me
Outcasts and girls with ambition
That's what I wanna see
Disasters all around (Disasters all around)
The World in despair (The World in despair)
Their only concern
Will it fuck up my hair

Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back
Porno paparazzi girl, I don't wanna be a stupid girl
Maybe if I act like that, flipping my blonde hair back
Push up my bra like that, I don't wanna be a stupid girl

[spoken]
Oh my god you guys, I totally had more than 300 calories today.
That was so not sexy.
Good one, can I borrow that?
[Vomits]
I WILL BE SKINNY!
(Do ya thing, do ya thing, do ya thing,
(like this, like this, like this)
Pretty will you fuck me girl, silly I'm lucky girl
Pull my hair I'll suck it girl, stupid girl!
Pretty will you fuck me girl, silly I'm lucky girl
Pull my hair I'll suck it girl, stupid girl!

Maybe if I act like that, flipping my blonde hair back
Push up my bra like that, stupid girl!

Maybe if I act like that, that guy will call me back
Porno paparazzi girl, I don't wanna be a stupid girl
Maybe if I act like that, flipping my blonde hair back
Push up my bra like that, I don't wanna be a stupid girl


A poem by Marge Piercy -- "Barbie Doll"
This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniture GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.
She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.
She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.
In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertake's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.

Thanks for reading. ^_^ I hope it gave you something to think about.



Copyright © November 24th, 2004. JANS INDIGO. All Rights Reserved.

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