As I read the opening pages of Woman Warrior I couldn’t help but remember a serious conversation that Maysie, Duncan, Alex, and I had in the car ride back from our Spring Break Colorado trip. I’m not really sure how the subject was brought up, but we ended up having a discussion about the double standards set in our society. Girls go out and party just as guys do here at UT. Some girls get drunk and some guys get drunk and some girls and guys get together for random hook-ups. Yet, the next day, who is usually left feeling guilty and slutty? I think nine times out of ten, the girl is leaving the situation with a sinking feeling that this is just another thing that can cause stares and petty, gossipy conversations. Here is yet another flaw that she can add to her belt and another thing that she has to be ashamed of. Yet, the guy usually gets to brag to his friends about these things. A girl kisses two guys in one night and is called a slut; a guy kisses two girls in one night and gets high fives. A woman in a Chinese village gets raped and the man gets away with it, yet the woman’s house is raided by the very village she lives with and she is pressured to commit suicide.
To prove a point, I google imaged "slut" and the first page of pictures were all associated with girls...
This is probably a rather narrow-minded (and very feminist) depiction of how things are, but I have to state the facts nonetheless. And it is these words that lead me to believe that somehow, this narrow-minded perspective is right: “[the baby] was probably a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for boys” (15). Although many people may disagree with what I’ve said just now, I have to remain firm in my beliefs that the social situation of men and women remains unfair, despite how much progress has been made in terms of gender equality. Slut is not a name you hear very often tagged with a guy. Heads are more easily turned and events easily erased when it comes to a man’s reputation. And I sit here reading the sad life that this no name woman led and connect it to the lives that we lead now, I have to wonder why these parallels exist and why this double standard continues to shape women’s reputations. I mean, I do understand that kissing two people in one night could be socially unacceptable to many, but I fail to understand why it only goes one way. Sure, a lot of people I know would agree that it goes both ways and that the guy is just as much at fault as the girl. But I know that deep down, there is that barrier there—the barrier that puts a girl’s reputation at stake, but just another notch in the guy’s belt. And I’ve thought about it a great deal and really can’t answer the question as to why this double standard exists. So I guess that’s all I can say about that.
However, I have a hunch as to what it all comes down to: honor. Especially honor for those we love (rather than ourselves), which is perhaps why it is honorable to be a swordswoman who can get “even with anybody who hurt her family” (19). The honor that avoids being “‘forgotten as if you had never been born’” (5). But honor, lately, has kind of turned to reputation in a way. For no name woman it was a matter of shaming her family and breaking the codes set down by their society and for us it’s now embarrassment and shame at being talked about and having fingers pointed. In college, we work so hard to find our groups and friends and as a result, we also work hard in building up a reputation, or at least some kind of identity that outsiders can judge by. Because you know that these judgments are made before you’ve even met a lot of people. So maybe it goes down ever further: that is, judgments. If we, as humans, weren’t so quick to pass judgments on people, maybe these standards wouldn’t have to exist. For a long time now, I can recall this being a big lesson: not judging people. You learn from a young age: don’t judge a book by its cover—but that’s merely appearances. Maybe we need to go even further: don’t judge someone based on what you may know of them based on rumors, Facebook profiles, and the people they hang out with.
I’ve found lately that people I know have had much more trouble integrating than I suspected. I came to college so ready to meet tons of people and find an atmosphere in which most people know everybody else and social situations were less clique-y. Not exactly the case. Although it is true, the definitions of the groups have definitely changed, the groups remain there nonetheless. There are no longer the “popular kids” and the “nerds,” but we have managed to create names for ourselves nonetheless. And judgments are probably what largely contribute to these tighter-knit groups rather than holistic communities. We meet those people that we’re right-off-the-bat friends with and feel comfortable with, so we stick with those people and view others as outsiders. When this perspective takes over, it’s very easy to make quick passes at people based on skimming the surface.
After reasoning for some time, I now see some definite contributing factors for a girl’s need to be perfect. Yes, these rules could apply for guys as well, but I think we all know that this situation is much stickier for the girls and I think realizing this is the first step to fixing it.
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