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Re-birth.
Sara J Call
PHL 417
28 October 2007

Affirming All Women
While I was in high school I purchased a book by Rebecca Walker titled “to be real”. It contains dozens of essays by many different people describing definitions of feminism. I found that it, more than any outlined feminist theory or ideology, empowers me to believe in the strength and sisterhood possible through feminism, in its many and diverse forms brought alive through women all over and around the world. Big names, like Naomi Wolf, bell hooks, Angela Davis, are mixed in with all the rest of the feminists, womanists, and femmenists, and it is within the pages I feel like I can relate to the women anywhere, because they have offered their stories up for anyone to read.
Yet despite being able to relate to even the essay written by a supermodel when I’m reading alone, once I begin roaming the streets in my everyday tasks, I find myself slipping into a judgmental mindset, wherein I have to protect myself from not only what I perceive as the ever pervasive and condemning “male gaze” but the also almost more threatening “pretty girl gaze”. I become, in everyday, afraid of being judged, and as such end up judging myself.
I have an idea of what it may take to instead affirm all the women and girls I perceive as unnecessarily hyper-sexualized and made dumb by their own buy-in and sell-out to patriarchy, but it would be impossible to interview each and every female I felt intimidated by because of her outer appearance. Even then, this would lead to the issue that if she could not “explain herself”, I would walk away with an even greater disdain for her, thereby creating a deeper inability for me to readily accept “my sisters” and sometimes seeding a guilt of “feminist failure” within me. Despite knowing how hard it is for me to feel like a sister to all women, especially women such as Jesse Jane, the sorority girl with the short skirt and high boots, and the daisy duke sporting high school student, I usually do end up following up my harsh judgment of the other females with a judgment of myself, either as a “good” or “bad” feminist.
But is it possible to not pass judgment on them and affirm them instead, whether or not they can account for why they are who they are? There is no right or wrong answer that will solve all of the problems of the fears of the “pretty girl gaze”, which I believe exists as a reflection of the male gaze, and also which I have heard my female friends discuss (or otherwise describe as being “skanked out”, glared at, inspected, or having had a nose lifted at). Yet, what I have tried to do in order to neutralize my almost instant scorn towards these women is to remember the book I bought in high school, especially the essay by the supermodel, and to remember what Veronica Webb said in regards to heated accusations of her being a “piece of meat” with no power: “…[F]or you to get that upset at me already tells me that I have emotional power over you” (212). Furthermore, she goes on to say that while women agonize they can’t look like her; she accepts that she cannot look like them, and that no woman can actually be an airbrushed picture. Somehow, all of this internal re-reading of the book makes me back-off the other woman a little bit, and if I still have trouble not glaring at her slender legs or desirable hair, or if I’m angered by all the men and women who take a double look at her and time seems to slow down like a romantic movie for her to walk past with the wind ruffling her skirt and locks, then I proceed to imagine a conversation with her in which she isn’t the epitome of a “dumb girl” with great boobs and a fine ass.
I don’t believe it is likely for humans to stop judging each other at first glance any time soon. I believe that’s how we function and interact, by, at some point, judging through our own gaze. I think that the problem is that we create “clear” divisions, especially as women to other women. In high school, cliques were outrageously clear, and even though none of us clearly understood who we or each other were, we thought cliques could be crisply outlined. Even today, at this age, we create divisions, by sex, age, class, race, or profession, and it’s hard to see past it. Porn stars, we seem to assume, are all the same, selling themselves short for the ultimate patriarchal organization. Yet we don’t consider if these women are single mothers, or struggling to make a living, or trying to find a way to express themselves sexually, or if they also fit into a more sympathetic category. We don’t know if they are political activists, writers, singers, or mothers. Only one aspect of their lives is enough to condemn them by some people’s standards.
Yet despite how much humans like to put other humans into clear categories, that is not how we actually exist. We have much potential and many aspects, and exclusion and fellowship are arbitrary when lots of opinions are involved. For feminism, this means that many theories are hard to accept, or it may be difficult to create a collaboration and cohesion within such theories. Indeed, I believe that there can be as many theories of feminism as there are people. Yet connection, at least for me, by way of conversation or self exploration or expression, can override all these emphasized differences, for I believe in a different and less obvious type of beauty: beauty that exists on the inside, and by this can all women be affirmed by their own right. It just may take a few blinks to see past my initial glance.

Literature Cited
Webb, Veronica. “How Does A Supermodel Do Feminism?” to be real. Ed. Rebecca Walker.
New York: First Anchor Books Edition, 1995. 209-218.