Being valued socially is critical for us as people.
Its critical because regardless of whether or not we want to admit it
We are still a socially dependent species.
We are born relationally dependent
Our only way of getting our needs met
is if the people in our environment
actually value us. If they value us,
if they see us as good,
or positive in some way,
then obviously they’re going to keep us around.
On a physical, emotional, and mental level.
Things like significance, belonging, physical touch, love and caretaking
When we’re young or sick, just to start.
These are things that a person can’t live without.
We need them, but this puts us in a double bind.
It means we end up having to win people’s favor
or try to become whatever the society we are raised in values
whether we like it or not, or whether we want to admit it or not,
the thing that society still values in a woman the most
is what she looks like.
The extreme emphasis we put into body positive campaigns
and “its what’s on the inside that counts” type of propaganda
and believing that if you think that what is most important is looks
it makes you bad.
This effort suggests just how pervasive this value is
when it comes to women.
In other words,
The thing that people value the most in women,
Is whether she’s beautiful attractive or sexy.
This value is embedded in our society.
It is even embedded in our biology.
From the minute a little girl enters the world
The focus goes to whether she’s pretty or not.
And she’s raised in a society that teachers her either directly
or indirectly that a specific thing is considered beautiful and
desirable and worthy of notice and also care.
She has one single option, to try to fit into that box
and be what society considers to be beautiful and desirable
Or suffer the consequences
These consequences are constantly reinforced.
They’re reinforced by teachers. They’re reinforced by parents.
They’re reinforced by peers.
So what does this mean for women?
It means that women who cannot make themselves fit into the tiny box
of looks that would make them be valued in the way they are,
are fighting a losing battle with significance.
It means that most women spend their whole lives
feeling insecure about their bodies and their value.
Striving to fit into that box and compete with one another.
It means that women who do fit into that tiny box,
spend their lives feeling as if no one cares about them at all,
and that they’re doomed to lose their value one day,
and be a commodity up until that point.
We’ve got to stop telling the story that looks don’t matter.
It’s a completely separate topic whether they should matter or not,
But what I’m suggesting that it is a huge gaslight
especially for young girls when they’re getting these mixed messages.
They’re getting inundated with the idea that looks actually do matter.
And they absolutely do still currently.
But at the same time, they keep getting the message
that it shouldn’t matter and it doesn’t matter and blah-blah-blah
This is creating a huge degree of confusion amongst women.
It’s our own attachment to our own ego that makes it
so that we have to believe that we are the one exception
for whom looks don’t matter.
Its also our own ego that has the attachment to being good
when we pretend that we don’t put intense amounts of energy
into the way that we look.
The reality is in the world today
Looks matter.
It doesn’t matter whether it should or shouldn’t matter
at this moment because in a world where looks really matter
It puts women in an incredible double bind.
And a double bind is this:
we want the very thing we resent intensely.
Either we turn against our bodies and resort to plastic surgery,
or extreme diet regiments.
Or spend tons of money on products that hold the promise of looking good.
Or we spend our life campaigning against the fact that society
cares so much about our looks.
And what do we know about rebellion?
Rebellion is to push against something.
We’re still feeding into the idea that looks matter when we’re doing this.
Or we cope by trying to make it ok.
When we do this, we accept that the reality is that we are commodities.
And suppress the aspect of it that resents it.
We allow ourselves to be treated like sexual objects or trophies
In a kind of transactions to get what we want in exchange.
As a woman it’s like being in an incredible prison
where we want the very thing we also really don’t want.
What this does within women is it creates an incredible internal tension
because obviously what are we supposed to do?
we want this to change.
We don’t want our looks to have everything to do with
whether we are valued or not.
But at the same time very few of us are willing to take the massive risks
Involved in trying to change it
because we have needs.
We want to be significant, wanted, noticed, valued
and considered attractive.
So we take actions to look as good as we possibly can
We may try to deny that we want it
because we have been shamed into believing
that wanting it makes us so bad.
At the same time as we’ve been told we should be those things.
Pretending we don’t want the attention or to be desired in that way
is a real shadow within the female race in general.
Obviously, because we are so inundated
with the idea or the mixed message basically
that on the one hand you should be as sexy as possible,
and on the other hand
if you are super sexy it makes you a whore or self-centered,
and you shouldn’t focus on whether you look good or not.
That mixed message drives us completely crazy, by the way.
But what happens is this;
We have to lie to people.
We have to pretend as if
we’re not dressing in this way to get the attention.
But we absolutely are.
And women have to start admitting it.
now no woman, obviously, deserves to be the victim of violent rape or
some other sexual assault as a result of trying to make herself look attractive.
However, it does not do any justice to us
if we are lying about the fact that we are trying to get attention
by looking the way that we’re making ourselves look.
But there is a flip side.
The flip side is,
we become commodities
Women fuel this emphasis on the fact
that looks have so much to do without value.
We actually propagate this idea with one another.
We try to push ourselves into looking as good as we possibly can
according to the societal standards.
This is completely screwed.
Why?
Because we pressure ourselves into it
and then we compete with each other for it.
But men ingrain it into women to a degree where it feels beyond
our capacity to transcend.
In general, men make it such an obvious priority
and such an obvious value
that they put us into a position to have to compete for their attention and praise.
Today I’ve decided to not make a video with any great solution in it.
Instead I’ve created a video to enhance your awareness and self-awareness.
I am proposing that we all need to look at the fact that within society
and this is unanimous across societies still today.
Looks and value with women.
They go together.
They are one and the same.
I am proposing that we, both men and women
Take an accurate look at admitting to when we are prioritizing this value.
I am proposing that, especially as women
we notice when we are doing this.
When we are dressing in ways to make ourselves be perceived as attractive.
When we’re dressing in ways to get attention
and not that we stop doing it.
but that when we do it, we do it intentionally
so I know that I am dressing this way so that I can be looked at in X,Y & Z way.
I know that I am putting on this makeup so that I can get this type of reaction.
When it’s a conscious process it’s a whole bunch more safe
for the psychology of your embodiment
than when you are doing it subconsciously.
I am proposing that we as women
see just how deep this need to be valued in this way goes.
And I am proposing that both man and woman
become completely conscious of this double bind that especially
woman find themselves so squarely in
that we want to feel valued for our looks.
But at the same time we are so deeply resentful of the fact
that our value is so equated to our looks.
Have a good week.