Ellington

My small group of friends and I spent the majority of last Saturday at Smith Robertson Museum. Our still nameless singing group and band performed at an art opening featuring many budding talents in our city. The exhibit's title: "Trapped Flowers." Jason Thompson, who emceed the show, said that a trapped flower was any woman who was stifled or suffocated, whether by domestic violence or by something more prosaic.

During our lives, we all experience incidents that either stunt our growth or make us stronger. If we cannot grow stronger, becoming focused on our own emotional and mental health, we become trapped. This is particularly the case with women in bad relationships. Many of the women at the opening were from a local women's shelter and were presumably survivors of domestic abuse—be it physical, verbal and/or emotional. But society—and women in particular—have a tendency to carry on as if men are the only ones who oppress and undervalue us. That's simply not the case. We teach people how to treat us.

It seems that most little girls go through a princess phase. They want to be princesses when they grow up, and no one can tell them any differently. After they've been convinced that's their destiny, that is. Who convinces them? Their mothers, sisters and other women who have significant impact on them. From early on, society, especially mothers, teach young ones that pink is for girls, and blue is for boys. From there, girls who have been baptized in pink have their romanticized ideas about prince charming, wedding bells and white wedding gowns—weddings, not marriages. From early on, society encourages young girls to have such dreams while young boys are persuaded to be the best they can be in sports, academics or whatever they put their minds to. Sadly, mothers are often the culprits of these uneven teachings—not fathers.

This is where I begin to question if we fully understand what women's liberation set out to do for us. Undoubtedly, women should have equal opportunity. Women's liberation—just like racial equality or other calls for recognition by the dominant culture (white males)—requires balance and the ability to hold two potentially opposing thoughts at the same time. It requires that society be cognizant of the differences between men and women, while simultaneously eradicating the rigid boxes that define how I should be because of my genitalia. As we play men's games—vocationally, and otherwise—it is crucial that we remember we're fighting the cause, not merely playing the game. Otherwise, in the end, we're still objectified.

An immediate example is the hypersexualization of women in the mainstream media. One of the most frequent excuses I hear for the skin-baring approach to selling everything from liquor to candy bars to domain names on the Internet is simply: Sex sells. So does crack. The fact that something sells does not mean that we have to embrace it.

Almost every music video has a woman with a nice, scantily clad figure grinding slowly on a man who pays her little attention other than to acknowledge her ample butt or breasts. She twists and turns, her body ready to be thoroughly inspected by an iced-out posse. This parallels a slave auction. There, after healthy young men had been chosen, slave women stood atop auction blocks for potential owners to examine every part of their anatomy, determining their worth.

Today, the men in videos salivate about the sex objects that dance, and the male executives of MTV, BET and other decision-makers of networks and record companies determine what's acceptable for public consumption. But we women sit and watch. The female form should be celebrated, but there's a difference between celebration and exploitation. Betty Friedan, author of "The Feminine Mystique," said that man is not the enemy, but a fellow victim. "The real enemy is women's denigration of themselves," she wrote.

Indeed, men suffer greatly from the devaluation of women. A culture that doesn't respect its women cripples itself. When women don't recognize their worth, we rear children who don't recognize their mother's worth or their own worth, and complexes of inferiority and subordination continue an inevitable cycle. When any attention is better than none at all, we've lost what it means to embrace the beauty of who we were created to be.

As women begin to take responsibility for ourselves, we must also begin to demand that the men around us do the same. Again, we teach people how to treat us. When we don't accept second-rate treatment, those around us, other women included, are forced to evaluate themselves and readjust or retreat. But it does little good to improve the state of women and not spend as much time rearing young boys into men. Believe it or not, this isn't something that I'd spent a lot of time thinking about prior to a point made by comedian Chris Rock on a recent episode of Oprah. They were discussing the leadership academy she just opened in South Africa and how wonderfully strong the young women were. "I hope someone opens a school like that one for the boys soon," Rock said, "because those girls are going to need someone to marry." Fish riding bicycles aside, he's right.

The first step toward healing ourselves is cleaning out the proverbial closet: finding those things that trapped us in the place so that we can move on from there. The last song we sang at Smith Robertson can be our cleaning-out-the-closet anthem. It's "Bag Lady" by Erykah Badu.

The lyrics are thought-provoking and suggest that we allow some people and things to put too much stuff in our emotional bags. They're toxic, so she warns, "pack light." But the vamp is my favorite part. "Betcha love will make it better. …" To southeners, "betcha," means "I bet you," but to me, I think her words mean, "I bet your love will make it better." In other words, self-love. One day, maybe a little girl's romanticized ideas about love and life will come true, but that's not the way life works for most of us. But the love that's sure to soothe and encourage is love of self. That's the love every woman owes herself. That's the first step away from entrapment for men and women. Let's all take that step together.

Previous Comments

ID

74690

Comment

yay, Natalie, thank you for being a positive force in our community.

Author

Izzy

Date

2007-03-19T09:02:16-06:00

ID

74691

Comment

This is an excellent column, Natalie. I can see and feel your growing, experiencing and calculating. Counting on men to give women self-esteem, love and self-worth is a bad idea. Too many sorry rascals (guys) these days are devoid of mutual or any respect for women or themselves. Otherwise, why is there so much intended hate of woman and unconscious or unavoidable hate of self by default and neglect? Thanks to Bob Johnson, former owner of BET and a living embodiment of the devil, and those like-minded devils at MTV, sorry daddies and unfit mothers, heartless and soul-less rappers, hoochie-moma-role models, et al, our little girl and boys have a dark and dreary road to travel with grandparents dying out too quickly. Too many girls never know, or soon forget, what it is to experience true love, self-worth, affirmation, confidence, pride, self-protection and real fulfillment. And too few boys learn what it is to be a real man before screwing up their lives and many others. Since what we send out comes back some day to visit us, the folks/entities above are going to have hell to pay. I hope I get to see some of it.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2007-03-20T14:05:13-06:00

ID

74692

Comment

On other thing. While many men are fearful of independent and smart women, a woman with good sense wouldn't worry any great deal about that. Only inadequate, scared and weak men fear these types of women.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2007-03-20T14:11:27-06:00

ID

74693

Comment

In case anyone is wondering why I seem to have an interest in this subject matter, I have a granddaughter and 3 grandsons who have to grow up during this generation. I'm hopeful I can understand the present climate and steer them toward the light. Especially, my granddaughter who I suspect some joker would be too glad to turn out.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2007-03-20T14:37:49-06:00

ID

74694

Comment

Ray, it is right to be concerned. I wish more folks would take an interest. Women cannot become empowered alone - we need men to help us be strong, fearless & confident. It is so hard to take that power living in a world that oversexualizes us & also seeks to crush us into tiny bodies that cannot be strong. The eating disorder epidemic alone is evidence that women need help. BTW I was at one of the performances and really enjoyed it. As I sat there I asked myself, what situations in my own life pertain? Where might I feel trapped? Where do I need to take my power...

Author

Izzy

Date

2007-03-22T10:13:22-06:00