Pat yourself on the back.
Being a woman can be really effing hard.
Now I can’t speak for the other gender, but on the daily women are faced with a multitude of expectations, rules and guidelines we’ve been told to follow. And if we’re not careful, going outside the norm can result in slut-shaming, outcasting, bullying, stalking, harassment and even death.
So yeah. It’s tough. And we’re allowed to complain.
While the conversation is changing, society is still far behind. Women all over the world are working really hard JUST to be themselves.
Sure, some of it is caused by people’s unwillingness to make an effort to change how they treat us — but we are just as much to blame. We’ve become victim to all the bullshit we’ve been told, and it’s time for us to change.
Rather than waste our energy focusing on changing minds of people we really don’t give a shit about, let’s bring the attention back to us.
We may not be able to change the situation, but we can change how we react to it.
We can chose to worry about how some guy will think about us if we wear a skirt without shaving our legs, or we can just do it.
We can chose to sit in silence at a work meeting because we think no one will care about our opinion, or we can just do it.
We can hold back our words and smile politely at the man who made some creepy comment about our outfit, or we can just fucking do it.
The conversation is going, but it’s up to us to change the tone.
We can’t control what people think or how they act, but we can continue to pat ourselves on the back for being as ballsy as we are.
So next time you’re worried about the way something you’re doing will be portrayed by someone else, just stop. Take a moment to breathe and ask yourself if it really matters. Because 9/10 times it doesn’t.
By Emily Blackwood orginal post on YourTango