The cruelest lie we were told was: Its whats on the inside that counts. It is not whats on the inside that counts. Perfect girls dont get a day off. Perfect girls dont sit on the sofa eating cookies, even when their very favorite show is on. Perfect girls are always working; when they are not at school or on the clock they are working out, and when they arent working out they are volunteering or running a social life like a frantic start-up. What counts is that we are good girls. Be a good girl. Smile and make people feel comfortable; accept low pay, long hours, the occasional grope in the corridor, compete with the other young women to be the prettiest and most compliant, or the hardest-working, or the girl everyone loves. Just dont ever aspire to be more than that. Being That Girl is easy if youre white and averagely pretty. There is no trick to it. You dont even have to totally excise the parts of your personality that dont fit, the parts that are smart and difficult and loud and angry and ambitious and masculine and mature. You just dial those parts down until they become background noise; dial them down and down until the male ear cant pick up their frequency and pretty soon you cant even hear them inside your own head. Tune them out and swallow them down like the hot meals you dont eat any more because That Girl must stay slim and fragile if she wants to be beautiful and loved. And we do want to be beautiful and loved. theguardian/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/30/unspeakable-things-laurie-penny-book-extract
Posted on: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 16:25:06 +0000
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