nhiều chuyện, by angel lin

one of the greatest scams of the 21st century? “girls can do anything boys can do.”

I grew up being told—despite my unfortunate malady of having been born with two x chromosomes—that I could still be whatever I wanted to be. that girls could accomplish anything they put their minds to. that we went to college to get more knowledge and boys went to jupiter to get more stupider.

and, boy, did I take this to heart. having the privilege of growing up in a post-third-wave-feminism world, I spent my days playing dress up with my barbie doll as an astronaut-doctor-cowgirl-president. I played tag and four square with a vicious aggressiveness. I developed confidence and sass borderlining innappropriate for a little asian girl that was barely over 4 foot by the sixth grade. anything the boys could do, I could do. this feminist proverb was indoctrinated in me.

and it stuck with me, even when the boys started ditching four square for football and my friends and I tried our first samplings of mascara and eyeliner. however, it was during these years—during the wretched, oily, insecure, flirtatious years of puberty—that the dynamics began to shift. out of nowhere, it seemed, the boys got meaner and the girls stopped raising their hands in class. we made less jokes and started covering our mouths whenever we laughed. if there were an ideal time for a young girl to learn about the tragic truths of the patriarchy, it was when you realized that the teachers were more concerned about the length of your skirt than your participation in class.

accompanying the life-shattering physical developments of puberty was a reckoning with an equally life-shattering matter: the gender thing. the years when we started cleaning up everyone else’s plates after dinner. the years when our leisure time was cut short because we had to help our mom in the kitchen. the years when the once safe and comfortable home suddenly became a place where you had to worry about the length of your shorts because your uncle was visiting. it was in these years that our girls had to accept certain realities: that the boys can jump a little higher and run a little faster than we can, that there are certain subjects in school that we aren’t really supposed to be good at, that our bodies are inherently sexual commodities. we were women in a world that subjugated women.

at this point, “girls can do anything boys can do” began to feel like some kind of sick joke. but, of course, we clung to it. because what else could we tell ourselves to find comfort?

we build up our girls’ confidence only to tell them they have the wrong tools for the job. we tell our girls that, despite the fact that every aspect of their academic, professional, and social world exists within the structural confines of patriarchy, they can still do anything that boys can do. in fact, not only can they do anything that boys can do, they should do everything that boys do. the benchmark for success is now defined by whether or not they can find acceptance in a man’s world.

and, because of course a man’s world is built for men, we come resent our womanhood. resent it because it is a curse. to be woman is to be too sweet, too empathetic, and too soft.

and so we reject it. feminism tells us that we can break the glass ceiling if only we lean in and act more like men. and so, almost ironically, feminism makes it so that we cannot help put to perceive our every act and every word through the eyes of men. speak with a lower voice. don’t be too nice or people won’t take you seriously. make your emails brief and to the point. stop smiling. don’t use exclamation points. don’t laugh. don’t wear anything that will call attention to the fact that you have a body. don’t talk about your kids. don’t be so emotional, people will think you’re on your period. don’t get mad if the manager makes that joke—that’s just how he is. what do you mean you want kids soon? don’t you know that’s ending your career before it even starts?

but what this doesn’t prepare you for, however, is the inevitable realization that, despite how hard you may work or how charismatic you may be, you will never be invited to sit at the boys’ table at lunch. more likely, you will be a topic of a locker room conversation at lunch. that you will never stop having to prove your competence—your worth—in every room you walk into. sacrificing our womanhood only to be passed up for promotions, excluded from meetings, and ripped apart like raw meat. before we are their colleagues, we will always be women.

I mean, let’s face it: women only got the right to vote in this country just a little over a hundred years ago. until the 70’s, we didn’t even have our own bank accounts. and to pretend that we were able to unlearn centuries of patriarchy and the biases of gender roles after just two generations? ridiculous. the workplace is not genderblind.

I write all this not to preach pessimism and gloom. I know I am likely preaching to the choir here. (by all means, I do not believe that all men are like this. in fact, I have come to develop some of my most profoundly deep friendships with many great men in my life. these are men who I know would advocate for me in any moment of insult. men who would never question my competence. men who I love and care deeply for.)

but I have no choice but to be a realist. even if good men exist, I cannot pretend that my gender does not still weigh heavily on my mind as I contemplate my future plans for my professional career like an aching pain that I know will only get worse. I cannot pretend that I will not always be forced to hyper-fixate on how other’s percieve me and my competence because of my gender.

more so, I write this to critique the flawed nature of modern feminism’s denial of gender. attempting to convince ourselves that womanhood is no longer a real barrier to our success is close to delusion. as any race theorist can tell you, pretending to not see the real and signficant consequences of our social constructions will only reinforce the dominant culture’s supremacy. under the guise of equality, we are forcing our women to embody masculinity and reject womanhood. we are knocking ourselves down before we even get a chance to be our authentic selves. giving ourselves a false sense of confidence that only makes it hurt more when we don’t succeed. we are making our women hate themselves.

to be honest, this was not what I intended to write this post about. do me a favor and consider this excerpt as nothing more than a bitter rant that doesn’t accurately reflect my opinions on the matter. I fully am aware that I am being a negative nancy right now and I’ll write a follow up post to this soon. I love being a woman. and I love my femininity. it’s just been a little hard to feel that love recently. it’s been to hard to really feel confident in myself and my abilities.

after having all my hopes set on the fulbright—after being so confident about getting the fulbright—facing such bitter rejection was soul-crushing. and I know, I know. I needed to learn how to face failure at some point (and, trust me, I have). but this was supposed to be it. this was supposed to be my ticket to proving that I had made it. to proving that I had been the one to go to college and finally make all those years of work, sweat, extra shifts, studying, financial aid, nights in, extracurriculars, and advocacy worth it. to proving that I was not just competent, but excellent.

and the thing is, I know that I am excellent. I know that I am a hard worker, a passionate leader, and a thoughtful artist. but this very confidence was what made the harsh wake up call to reality so much worse. it was a bitter reminder that I live in a world of patriarchy.

now, don’t get me wrong—I’m not throwing a tantrum and claiming that I didn’t get the fulbright because I am a woman. I am sure that whoever did recieve the award is an incredibly admirable, accomplished, and deserving person. I cannot only wish the best for them, man, woman, or otherwise.

rather, this is me realizing that one of the unconscious reasons I really wanted the fulbright (and trust me, I know that this is not a noble or virtuous reason) was because of something else entirely: I didn’t want to have to work so hard to prove my worth in every room I walk into for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to have to work so hard to achieve presumed competence in every room as a woman of color for the rest of my life. the fulbright was supposed to be it. and now that I don’t have a back up plan, I’m scared.

I’m blessed for having been raised to dream big. blessed for having mentors who believe in me so much. blessed for having the opportunity to totally destroy the boys at four square every recess. but a consequence of having such high aspirations, I am slowly coming to learn, is being rudely ambushed with reality every once in a while. the bitter disappointment of remembering who you are in the world.

and while I truly do believe that girls can do anything boys can do, the older I get, the more I am coming to realize that I am not quite willing to sacrifice myself just to fit in with the boys. I want to stop setting myself up for failure and disappointment. I want to come up with dreams and goals for myself outside of the metrics of our male-driven, money-driven society. and while I don’t quite know what this really looks like yet, I’m finding that leaning into loving myself, forgiving myself, and being patient with myself feels like the right step.