one: comparison shopping

recent discussions of feminist critical theory have got me thinking about what it means to be a woman in 2006. sometimes i think that we're all pretty much equal and that sex, gender, race, class, sexual orientation, etc are dwarfed by the fact that in the end we're all human...then i remember that that's MY belief and the belief of most of my close friends but not the belief of the rest of the world...the world is still pretty much fucked with the rich white heterosexual men leading us straight to hell on a road paved with gold and 'terrorist' threats.

so what is it like to be a woman in 2006 and i think it's tied closely to our place as consumers. essentially we are comparison shoppers. we're a product and we're always looking for something better to replace ourselves with.

"i want her tits!"

"no, i want her teeth!"

her eyes. her hair. her abs. her heart. her lungs. her ribs. thighs. calves.

i want to BE her instead of me. we can BE whoever we want to be because we can BUY whatever we want. we then get all freaked out because we can't afford to be who we feel we're suppose to be. who we're told we should want to be.

but i think in all this comparison shopping and looking for a better deal or a better future or a better boyfriend or a better whatever we forget that there are probably other women looking at us and comparing their own teeth, hair, jeans, spleen, etc to our own.

i think we've all been so convinced that we simply aren't good enough for whatever we need to be good enough for. and i'm equally guilty of this, we all are. i spend large parts of my days wishing i looked, acted, spoke, thought differently then i do. but i don't. and at some point i have to accept that. i'm not at that point yet.

so who's to blame for comparison shopping? i don't want to come right out and say MEN are to blame! or THE MEDIA is to blame! we're ALL to blame. you can't change anyone but yourself right? right. i think. i don't know. i just know that i don't want to want to be anyone else, even for just a day. i don't want to want what someone else has. i just want to be content.

perhaps discontent is the post-modern condition. i don't know. all this feminist theory has just got me thinking about how i define my own feminity and i realise that a lot of women (myself included) define themselves based on other women and idealized views of women presented by men (oftentimes). perhaps harold bloom's* theory of the 'anxiety of influence' stems beyond artistic creation and into our everydays lives. perhaps we worry because we feel that we cannot begin to compete with the cannonical women set up by men, by the media, by who we're conditioned to believe that we should be. we're undoubtedly influenced by all those things and HOW can we realistically be expected to compete.

but why compete? why not sit down and recognize that we are ALL awesome in our own ways. that every single person is totally rad for all their own individual tastes. i look at my friends and they are amazing actors, writers, musicians, dancers, huggers, geniuses, teachers, and friends and yet so many of them long to be someone else. someone more 'attractive' or more interesting or just MORE. gosh friends, realise how amazing you are. you're AMAZING friends! you put up with me! that's fucking something right there...

i'm getting off topic and i don't know what the point it. i just know it's too hard and takes too much energy to spend time wishing you were someone else with better abs.

somehow i always manage to get waaay off the the point i was on when i started but there it is.

xo michelle.


*yeah, i know harold bloom is a misogynistic psychoanaylitic critic but i am re-appropriating his theory so there!