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Ladylike

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Lately I’ve been listening to a podcast called Unladylike — it’s about women who break the rules, what it’s like living within and changing the patriarchy, the way it’s all institutionalized and what it’s like [and how] to shift things. They cover so many topics, and while some just aren’t relevant to me, there are more topics that are that I haven’t yet run out of episodes. I highly recommend it!

But I’ve been thinking about the term “ladylike” and what a confining and ridiculous concept it is. I suppose it came from the society and culture of England, we brought it with us, where acting like a LADY was a class thing, a taught thing, with rules and requirements of do and do not, and a horror of breaking those rules, or not conforming. I suppose people who weren’t ladies aspired to be, and thought they might perform their way into a similar experience, or something.

And so we of older generations were carefully taught ladylike things. Hell, even the Girl Scouts taught us ladylike things; I wasn’t a Girl Scout for very long, but one of the badges I earned was hospitality (the teacup on the bottom right…but it also looks like I earned a badge for being a hobo, which is probably the more accurate). I don’t remember the things I had to learn and do in order to earn the hospitality badge, but I do remember the lessons taught by my culture at that time — which includes the cultures of our country, the South, Texas, and my mother. They involved how to sit and stand, how to cross your legs (which must always be crossed, but in different ways at different ages, at the ankles for girls), how to be properly turned out at all times, how to behave in public (never ever raise your voice, be acquiescent, do not display anger or make anyone uncomfortable), etc etc etc.  I think and hope that young girls in today’s culture are taught differently. I know for a fact that Marnie will teach Ada Rae to have a voice and express herself clearly and openly, and an upending of all the rules I grew up with. I don’t think I taught my girls those things, although I’ve recently learned that I have almost no idea what I taught them. (An aside: when she was about 2, I was addressing Christmas cards that said “Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men,” and Marnie said, “What about women?” They come into the world exactly who they are, don’t they?)

I have pretty much failed at being a lady, although I did what I had to do in my working years, dressing appropriately and complying and not speaking up or contradicting boss (men), etc. But I’ve never really tended to my appearance very much, and I’ve always dressed in jeans and T-shirts (my style is not very feminine, never has been, and I think I’d cringe and feel awful if I ever had to wear a ruffle). I only wore make-up if I had to, for work, and even then it’s always been minimal and focused on mascara and lipstick. I had the good fortune of having good skin, kind of porcelain/peachy, so it was never commented on as a problem.

In deep ways I don’t even feel like a female, although I’m not saying that I have a different gender identity. I do identify as female, I just don’t feel very female. I feel only like a person. After I had my hysterectomy when I was 29, I started fantasizing about having both breasts removed (cancer prevention, doncha know, even though no woman in my family has ever had breast cancer and I have no risk factors). The impulse was an idea I had of a line drawing of a body, with straight lines in both places where a breast should be, and across the lower abdomen where organs were removed. A neutered person. That idea lingered in me for decades, and I can still easily touch it, and it moves me. Perhaps I wanted no visible evidence of being female in order to be safe in the world, safe from men, or perhaps I wanted to remove the things of female because they had caused me so very much pain. Or maybe I’ve just deeply never felt like a female seems to feel.

But no amount of surgery can dig out the ancient old cultural teachings that I was imbued with, and that today’s culture still enforces on women (even though I am rarely among people and do not work with anyone). I’m ladylike in the inner ways, even if my outer ways are completely unladylike, me with my uncolored, graying hair and un-surgeryed face and jeans and T-shirts. My inner self metaphorically quirks her finger as she drinks her tea — but only after everyone else has been served tea — and my ankles are crossed. IT SUCKS.

I long to shout, and be disagreeable, and say whatever the hell I’m thinking, and rail against systems and institutions, and I absolutely lose my shit every single time I think about the direction this country is going in terms of women’s rights to their own fucking SELVES GODDAMMIT. 

The Girl Scouts have retired the hospitality badge (known as the hostess badge until 1953), thank heavens. I think they’re now focused much more on teaching girls how to be unladylike in all the ways. I recently read a letter to the editor written by a young girl, pointing out that in a recent parade, the Boy Scouts were announced as “future leaders” and the Girl Scouts were announced as “having fun.” She wasn’t having any of it. GO GIRLS. Go, organizations and mothers who refuse those rules. And go, RBG, please live a long enough time to see us through. God knows how much we need you.

And one more mention of Nanette, on Netflix, Hannah Gadbsy’s completely remarkable live performance, recorded in Sydney (and I have a friend who was in that audience, that gives me an electrical jolt of connection). Here’s a review of it just to whet your appetite. I’ve watched it four times now, and still can’t get through the last ~half hour without sobbing that hard, ugly sobbing, the kind that contorts your face and you can’t really see. I’ll never take away the terrible things that have happened to her as a consequence of her sexual orientation and gender not-normal-conforming, but I have my own experiences that lead her anger and rage to resonate in a way that leaves me feeling like she is raging on that stage for ME. Fuck ladylike, and boy do I mean that.


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