{"id":21373,"date":"2021-08-19T09:00:04","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T16:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=21373"},"modified":"2021-08-11T14:03:32","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T21:03:32","slug":"lets-talk-2-0-fragile-femininity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2021\/08\/19\/lets-talk-2-0-fragile-femininity\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s Talk 2.0<\/em>: Fragile femininity"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a sweaty summer afternoon and I had just gotten off work for the day. Sighing in heat-fuelled exhaustion, I got in the car and turned on my summer Spotify playlist. I always listen to music in the car, and, naturally, this playlist had lots of classic summer hits. I was halfway home when \u201cWhat Makes You Beautiful\u201d by One Direction started blasting through my speakers. I enjoy the song, so I left it playing. But after a few minutes of being stuck in traffic, I started to worry about what other cars would think. Listening to One Direction? How embarrassing! But… Why?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of stigma surrounding what you can and can\u2019t like as a woman, and it has to do with how women (and their likes and dislikes) are perceived. If something is \u201cgirly\u201d then it’s immediately given a connotation of unimportance and\/or immaturity. Things that are typically viewed as \u201cfeminine,\u201d like makeup, dresses, and, yes, boy bands are all labelled this way.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Let’s Talk 2.0<\/em> is a column exploring feminist issues (graphic by Celina Lessard\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Like I\u2019ve said before, it’s not that people don\u2019t want to be associated with femininity\u2014it’s that they don\u2019t want to be associated with how society and the media represent femininity, and this is exactly the trap I felt myself falling into on that summer day.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cfragile masculinity” is thrown around a lot, but I would argue that this fragility exists for women, too. If I don\u2019t want to listen to a certain band because I\u2019m worried other people will think I\u2019m too girly, is that not fragile femininity?<\/p>\n

After going through the mental deliberation of \u201cshould I change this music?\u201d for 30 seconds, I came to the conclusion that I should do what I like. Who cares if the car next to me can faintly hear my music? And so what if that music happens to be One Direction? I\u2019m secure enough to admit that I like One Direction\u2019s music\u2014they\u2019ve got some absolute bops.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the painful reality is that, as a woman, there is very little that you can like without being stigmatized or made fun of for, even at the hands of other women. Too much makeup? She\u2019s fake and doesn\u2019t love herself. She plays sports? She\u2019s doing it either to gain male attention or because she wants to prove something. She\u2019s confident in her own body? She\u2019s stuck up or self-absorbed. Women, as far as the world is concerned, always have ulterior motives for liking something. We can\u2019t just exist. We are always plotting, or attention-seeking, or \u201cdoing it for a guy.\u201d Sometimes I like makeup because I feel pretty wearing it. Sometimes I like wearing dresses because they\u2019re comfortable or it’s hot out. Sometimes, I just want to listen to One Direction for no other reason than because I like their music.<\/p>\n

I am a woman, and, contrary to popular belief, sometimes I just like things because I like them.<\/p>\n

From this point on I\u2019m going to like what I like and be unashamed to admit it. I\u2019m going to live without needing a reason for everything I do. Everyone should be unafraid to be their authentic selves, and I hope everyone (not just the women) will join me in that. Love what you love, and be proud of your interests. As Marie Kondo would say, anything that sparks joy deserves to be in your life\u2014no matter what anyone else says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a sweaty summer afternoon and I had just gotten off work for the day. Sighing in heat-fuelled exhaustion, I got in the car and turned on my summer Spotify playlist. I always listen to music in the car, and, naturally, this playlist had lots of classic summer hits. I was halfway home when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20638,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21374,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21373\/revisions\/21374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}