Few years ago, having a conversation with my family, about the reasons why women must be good and well-behaved, I realized than their theory was part of a toxic masculinity. And is that masculinity what makes Latin American countries have the wrong idea of a woman.
Also, the bible adds "But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman." (I Corinthians 11: 3) then Christianity also instills in us that, in addition to behaving well, women have a duty to abide by the rules of a man. A person who, superimposing physical force, endows the need to demonstrate in a nasty way a non-existent superiority over women, because we now know that women and men have the same intellectual capacity and the same power to make opinions and beliefs public.
There is no different culprit than the human being himself from all this mental abuse supported at a cultural and historical level.
"Man's greatest difficulties begin when he cannot do what he feels." (Thomas Henry Huxley) According to this, it is necessary to do what it feels like, that is to be. Being someone promotes the benefit of expressing yourself as an independent, thinking and able to assume your position in society, the life of others and in your own life.
The woman for being a living being doesn't have to act on a "right" way to be a good person. Reading Ulrich text "well-behaved women seldom make history" helped me understanding the constant fight that we as women have with the surrounding, and how hard it is.
On Ulrich text, I found some support to what I was having on my mind before, in the text, for example, Ulrich start talking about Jill Portugal saying "she fights sexual harassment, rape, pornography and what she calls 'fascist beauty standards'"(Ulrich 716). More than information what she is doing is putting the thing on the table, here is it, this is our fights. But also, proving how with creativity and good ideas, a woman has the benefit of being recognized.
Now, knowing this, how could this apply to a well-behaved woman? Because with the pass of the time we have meet historians, female historians, that are recognized for a lot of things but none of them is recognized because her behavior. On the text I found the phrase "Historians don't own history" (Ulrich 718). This is the answer for my question, here is where this applies. You own the acts and believes that push you on the history or not.
Going back to my family, the concept of being a good woman is attached to have a great behavior. Then is a decision, be a good woman and stay well-behaved or speak up your ideals and be known for your rebellion. Ulrich call what Mae West said, "when I'm bad, I'm better" (Ulrich 718). And being honest, on my opinion she is right, when you don't follow rules that you don't share, but instead you act based on your ideals, with good purposes then you will be better for yourself and the people around you.
But even Mae got comments about her attitude, Variety was complaining about Mae saying that "Mae couldn't sing a lullaby without making it sexy" (Ulrich 719). Doesn't that sound familiar? Yes, because that toxic masculinity that I was calling before is what causes this kind of thinking. As if being a woman makes things easier, then, the talent is that weak that we need to use our sensuality as our biggest effort.
Another good example is the great Rosa Parks, for her being tired of an irrational rule where she should give her seat to a white person at the bus, makes her start doing what she felt right, and doing that people that doesn't know nothing about her start getting interested on her. Her actions impulse other females to fight for them believes. As an affirmation of this and calling Ulrich again she said, "Parks made history precisely because she dared to challenge both social norms and law" (Ulrich 719). Is appropriate say then that this woman was a bad girl in other words.
We know that, none of these historical females was having a minimum interest on being "a quiet, subservient, polite, indoors, cooking and cleaning type of girl who would never risk shame by voicing her own opinion" (Ulrich 722). With our theory, now, is opportune to clarify that the value of a person goes on what they are, what they think and what they do, but not on the rules that they follow.
"Human beings are not born forever the day their mothers give birth to them, but rather life forces them to give birth to themselves over and over again." (News of a kidnapping, Gabriel Garcia Marquez) supported by words as profound as these, I give myself the luxury of believing and trusting that at some point we will use the ability to learn that was given to us to contribute immensely in changing it. poor thinking. to give birth to oneself, this is the clear concept that must prevail in the decision to oppose belief.
The credibility of society and the manipulation of it means that in one way or another individual and collective well-being is affected.
So, it is your own decision to be who you believe and want to be. There is no valid reason to support without question this toxic masculinity that like a good devil has taken refuge in "feminism" to hide itself.
Because I do not support either of these two very pathetic positions, there is no doctrine to follow to be a good, educated person, responsible for their actions. to be a person you only need to be.
calling again to this great enlightened Garcia Marquez "Wisdom comes to us when it is no longer useful to us." (The colonel has no one to write to him) I have a bit of hope in our society and in myself for recognizing, investigating, understanding and feed on these words, so that women and men do not run late in life to be someone and stop embracing this miserable mentality that has been a guide to acts full of poverty that constitute us as a society.
Last but not less, is more than being Rosa parks or Mae West, what you need is to develop a rational mindset and that will make a huge difference on your own life.
