"Girlie" push-ups
I was 7 years old. The type of 7 year old girl who is what your mother would call a "raggamuffin". I had knotty hair and always falling all over the place. I was really awkward (a trait that plagued me up until senior year of high school), and my arms stuck out like fragile sticks. But man, I could do pushups.
I could do as many push ups as my 7 year old twin brother. And they were the normal kind, none of that "girlie" push-up stuff. I could also run a mile as fast as the boys, do as many pull-ups and crunches as the boys. It never occured to me that because I looked different than them, I wouldn't be able to acomplish the same tasks. And then it happened. I was 12 years old and these new girls came to school. They all seemed so much older, already grown out of their awkward pre-adolescent phase. Probably as a result of my shyness and my smallness, I was simultaneously terrified and in awe of them. They wore tight fitting clothes to gym class, shaved their legs regularly (something I still don't do), and talked about boys, clothes and pop-music. I felt like an alien standing amongst them, short, brown and skrawny in my boys gym clothes and my hair in a messy braid. Our gym teacher told us to do a certain number of pushups, and so I began. Not 5 seconds into my push-up routine did one of the girls yell out:
"can we do girlie pushups?"
There i was, mid pushup, and i looked over and the new girls who weren't doing pushups at all. But then I looked at my friends and they were doing the same thing. It was the cool thing to do- to handicap ourselves because we were girls. I was the only one doing "boy pushups". With an exaggerated eye roll the gym teacher allowed them to proceed in the pathetic form of girlie pushups. Even at that young age, I knew something was up.
The next year the annual mile run became "optional" for the girls. We had the choice to partake in the fitness test or to attend a Home-economics class. Guess which one most girls chose. Guess which one I chose. I beat most of the boys that year in the mile run. I remember my gym teacher pulling me aside afterwards and congratulating me.
It starts so young. And so I wonder how much of this gender difference in strength is true, and how much is ingrained in our behavior since age 12. Of course a guy who is twice my height and weight can lift more than me. I don't doubt it for a second. Hell, a girl who is my height and weight can probably lift more than me. I'm not a very muscular person, and I'm OK with that. but how different would I be now if I was never introduced to the world of handicapping, of "oh I"m a girl and I've got my period and I'm so weak and I CAN"T POSSIBLY run a mile in this condition (ie the condition of being a woman)." Seriously.
And that's something else that really gets me. I can't stand these midol/tylenol/advil commercials that make it seem like every 28 days we grow scales, devil horns and turn into a bitch bigger than the incredible hulk. In reality, PMS doesn't affect everyone like that. Furthermore, I resent having something natural and normal being refered to as something negative, a hassle, a pain. By doing so we're just proving the theory that female bodies are defective male bodies (thank you Freud, Plato and Aristotle). The truth of the matter is that everyone goes through mood swings. I know mine don't even coincide with my cycle. I know guys that turn into assholes like clockwork every month and girls that stay rational and level headed. I love it that when a girl is moody, she's PMSing. When a guy is moody he's either an artist or got Bipolar Disorder (ie a true disorder, which is caused by imbalanced chemical levels that can be treated with medicine, as opposed to an imaginary disorder like PMS which is caused by a woman uterus floating around her body and can't be treated by anything other than common household pain killers.) What now, professionals?!
And no, I'm not PMSing as I'm writing this. I've got another 2 weeks of "normalcy" until my skin scales over...
And while we're on hte topic of media and portraying ridiculous images, let's talk about the body image issue. It's pledging season and so I really have nothing but pity for those freshman girls. They might as well walk around with signs on their necks saying "Please don't feed the pledges". It's weird how we only associate body insecurity with being overweight. I think my own self image is so messed up at this point, and yet somehow my insecurities aren't valid because I'm small. Believe it or not, until I am made self-aware (aka put infront of a mirror) I think I'm overweight. Then when I am put infront of the mirror, I'm still not satisfied because I'm *too* little. I mostly blame the media for this. There is this ideal woman that we're all striving to be, who doesn't even exist and could never exist. I hate how our media basically sets us up for failure, we're constantly being told that the way we are isn't good enough.
When I talk about this I don't just mean girls, guys go through it too. But there is something about the way they project it onto girls that is especially damaging. There is nothing damaging about being told you should be strong and powerful, (ie the natural progression for a male body after puberty) but there is something horribly wrong with the way women are told we're to be small and fragile (ie the un-natural progression for women after puberty- we gain weight because we need to have enough fat to bear children).
I bring this up now because I am taking a cardio class at college, and I find myself feeling the same way I felt when I was 12 and awkward. I look around the room and I am not just the skinniest, but the *smallest* person there. And it's not a good thing. It's a very bad thing. I actually feel a level of disgust looking at myself. And yet when I express this, people think I'm nuts. It's disgust that passes, of course. I don't hate myself nor do I have an eating disorder. But for that split moment, it's like I'm joining in with the rest of womankind in hating myself, my body and feeling weak and incapable. Will we ever be happy with who we are? I'm working on it. But I'm not sure if it's possible. Perhaps the damage has already been done. Perhaps we should ban girlie pushups and home economics classes for 6th grade girls. I'd like to have words with the dumb jerk who came up with the concept of girlie pushups...
I could do as many push ups as my 7 year old twin brother. And they were the normal kind, none of that "girlie" push-up stuff. I could also run a mile as fast as the boys, do as many pull-ups and crunches as the boys. It never occured to me that because I looked different than them, I wouldn't be able to acomplish the same tasks. And then it happened. I was 12 years old and these new girls came to school. They all seemed so much older, already grown out of their awkward pre-adolescent phase. Probably as a result of my shyness and my smallness, I was simultaneously terrified and in awe of them. They wore tight fitting clothes to gym class, shaved their legs regularly (something I still don't do), and talked about boys, clothes and pop-music. I felt like an alien standing amongst them, short, brown and skrawny in my boys gym clothes and my hair in a messy braid. Our gym teacher told us to do a certain number of pushups, and so I began. Not 5 seconds into my push-up routine did one of the girls yell out:
"can we do girlie pushups?"
There i was, mid pushup, and i looked over and the new girls who weren't doing pushups at all. But then I looked at my friends and they were doing the same thing. It was the cool thing to do- to handicap ourselves because we were girls. I was the only one doing "boy pushups". With an exaggerated eye roll the gym teacher allowed them to proceed in the pathetic form of girlie pushups. Even at that young age, I knew something was up.
The next year the annual mile run became "optional" for the girls. We had the choice to partake in the fitness test or to attend a Home-economics class. Guess which one most girls chose. Guess which one I chose. I beat most of the boys that year in the mile run. I remember my gym teacher pulling me aside afterwards and congratulating me.
It starts so young. And so I wonder how much of this gender difference in strength is true, and how much is ingrained in our behavior since age 12. Of course a guy who is twice my height and weight can lift more than me. I don't doubt it for a second. Hell, a girl who is my height and weight can probably lift more than me. I'm not a very muscular person, and I'm OK with that. but how different would I be now if I was never introduced to the world of handicapping, of "oh I"m a girl and I've got my period and I'm so weak and I CAN"T POSSIBLY run a mile in this condition (ie the condition of being a woman)." Seriously.
And that's something else that really gets me. I can't stand these midol/tylenol/advil commercials that make it seem like every 28 days we grow scales, devil horns and turn into a bitch bigger than the incredible hulk. In reality, PMS doesn't affect everyone like that. Furthermore, I resent having something natural and normal being refered to as something negative, a hassle, a pain. By doing so we're just proving the theory that female bodies are defective male bodies (thank you Freud, Plato and Aristotle). The truth of the matter is that everyone goes through mood swings. I know mine don't even coincide with my cycle. I know guys that turn into assholes like clockwork every month and girls that stay rational and level headed. I love it that when a girl is moody, she's PMSing. When a guy is moody he's either an artist or got Bipolar Disorder (ie a true disorder, which is caused by imbalanced chemical levels that can be treated with medicine, as opposed to an imaginary disorder like PMS which is caused by a woman uterus floating around her body and can't be treated by anything other than common household pain killers.) What now, professionals?!
And no, I'm not PMSing as I'm writing this. I've got another 2 weeks of "normalcy" until my skin scales over...
And while we're on hte topic of media and portraying ridiculous images, let's talk about the body image issue. It's pledging season and so I really have nothing but pity for those freshman girls. They might as well walk around with signs on their necks saying "Please don't feed the pledges". It's weird how we only associate body insecurity with being overweight. I think my own self image is so messed up at this point, and yet somehow my insecurities aren't valid because I'm small. Believe it or not, until I am made self-aware (aka put infront of a mirror) I think I'm overweight. Then when I am put infront of the mirror, I'm still not satisfied because I'm *too* little. I mostly blame the media for this. There is this ideal woman that we're all striving to be, who doesn't even exist and could never exist. I hate how our media basically sets us up for failure, we're constantly being told that the way we are isn't good enough.
When I talk about this I don't just mean girls, guys go through it too. But there is something about the way they project it onto girls that is especially damaging. There is nothing damaging about being told you should be strong and powerful, (ie the natural progression for a male body after puberty) but there is something horribly wrong with the way women are told we're to be small and fragile (ie the un-natural progression for women after puberty- we gain weight because we need to have enough fat to bear children).
I bring this up now because I am taking a cardio class at college, and I find myself feeling the same way I felt when I was 12 and awkward. I look around the room and I am not just the skinniest, but the *smallest* person there. And it's not a good thing. It's a very bad thing. I actually feel a level of disgust looking at myself. And yet when I express this, people think I'm nuts. It's disgust that passes, of course. I don't hate myself nor do I have an eating disorder. But for that split moment, it's like I'm joining in with the rest of womankind in hating myself, my body and feeling weak and incapable. Will we ever be happy with who we are? I'm working on it. But I'm not sure if it's possible. Perhaps the damage has already been done. Perhaps we should ban girlie pushups and home economics classes for 6th grade girls. I'd like to have words with the dumb jerk who came up with the concept of girlie pushups...
posted by Jessica @ 6:41 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home