Equality

Do I need to look nice for you?

December 17, 2015 Leave a comment
 I’ve been conditioned from an early age that what I look like to men matters. My mother was one who would put on lipstick at the time she knew my father was coming home from work and, based on 50+ years of conditioning, I have a part of my brain which worries all the time about what men think of how I look.

I had a chance a few days ago to remind myself of just how ridiculous this brainwashing is. It was Sunday and I had spent the whole day in sweats. I’d been to meet my best friend for coffee (she was also in sweats), I’d been to visit Bret’s mom (her Alzheimer’s is so advanced now she is just pleased to see me and doesn’t comment on my looks any more), I’d decorated the house for Christmas with my family and cooked dinner. A typical busy Sunday.

In the late afternoon my husband Bret had been watching the weather and decided to drive to Tahoe after dinner to snowboard; he coordinated with a friend to meet at the house and drive up together. We had roast chickens in the oven and lots of food and so I invited the friend to dinner.

And this is where my brainwashing kicked in. I found myself standing in the kitchen worrying and wondering if I should go and change. I did look like crap, I confess, but I was reasonably clean. Why did I care? Why such a concern that a man is coming to dinner and I am worried what I look like. If it had been a female friend it would not have even occurred to me. And I know for certain the friend did not care.

This sense of the need for women to please men and to worry about what they think is drilled into my brain and even though I am conscious of it now it frustrates me. The continuous voice in my head is perfectly captured in this powerful short video of the things women hear, over and over, throughout their lives that diminish them. Worth a watch whether you are male or female.

I know most of my male friends simply don’t have the same toxic voices in their head – and many of them, my dear husband included, don’t care what they look like 99% of the time. I’m determined to learn a new way of thinking about myself through my own eyes, not the eyes of the men around me.