I want to talk to each and everyone one of you on life as a woman. Times are changing but, realistically are they??? In our society today, women are still being treated as the weaker sex and are being negatively spoken about in some way for their actions. Before I go into a whole rant about women being better than men, I just want everyone to know that this is my opinion. I have a right to speak my truth and my reasons why I know we are not equal individuals. As a woman, I want to establish the fact that men have always had the mentality of women being lesser than them, but it is now the 21st century so wake the hell up.
Recently, I had a few events take place in my life that really confirmed my perspective that women are still being treated unfairly. In my particular experiences, I was just not given the same respect that a man would have received. As you all know, I posted something last week about being independent and how I am confident in my body, just like every other girl has the right to be too. One thing that makes my blood boil is how many people acted like they were disappointed in me and kind of mad that I posted a picture of me in a bra. Someone please show me the difference between my pic and a boy without a shirt on outside. Someone please show me the difference between that picture and my bikini pics from last summer. In some instances, whenever a woman’s nudes get leaked, guys send those images out so fast and do things that only God knows, but they disparage a woman for posting her own sexy pics. These types of situations are one of the reasons why it genuinely makes me so upset that women are confident enough to show themselves off, but some careless people enjoy bringing others down in order to feel better about themselves. Our society has these set ideals that we are expeditious to follow instead of bothering to depart from old beliefs and catch up with current times. Women have fought for years just to have the basic human right of being equal to the opposite sex and we have certainly made progress in breaking the glass ceiling. Why is it that some men still do not see a woman as their equal individual who all coincide in one world?
One thing that I will never in my life ever tolerate is a little insecure boy yelling at me. On Monday, I went to have a nice, peaceful meal at Chili’s and I was in the middle of eating my chips and ranch whenever some drunk idiot came to sit at my table. Literally at first, I thought it was a stupid dare, but the guy would not leave and kept bothering me and all my friends after we made it clear we didn’t want him to sit with us. The situation would have been completely different if he would have been polite and said HI and just walked away. Instead, this turned into a whole fiasco at Chili’s on a Monday. This guy was an African American male and kept shouting how we should all be hanging out *the n word* and it seemed like he tried to justify his unacknowledged advances on racism when that had absolutely nothing to do with his actions. Side note, I think that word should never be used, it has such a negative connotation behind it and to me it is really disrespectful to just throw that word around like it means nothing. It disgusts me whenever men do not hold themselves accountable for their own actions. His imprudent, misogynistic deeds were completely uncalled for and this boy tried to justify his wrongdoings by pulling the race card on the wrong situation. I’m sorry, I do not care what you look like, but if you are making me or my friends feel uncomfortable then I’m not just going to let that be okay. After this dude leaves, we continue to enjoy our meal and then he proceeds to sit down with us AGAIN! At this point, we are all yelling in hopes of getting this boy away from our table and out of that restaurant. He was screaming at my friend for giving him a dirty look and asking him to get away from our girl’s night dinner. No REAL man should ever yell at a girl in an ugly way ever!! The thing that made me so furious about this whole incident is that the guy was not alone. He came with two other guys and girls that just sat back and allowed him to approach us more than once and harass us in the middle of Chili’s. Not to mention there were two other guys that sat right behind us and did not speak up once. Personally, it does not bother me if a guy speaks up about another guy’s wrongdoings because I can fight my own battles and I like having that power, but I do think you should always stand up for what you think is morally right.
The other day my friend told me about this study she read that talked about toxic masculinity. For those of you who don’t know, like me two days ago, toxic masculinity is the typical adherence to traditional male gender roles that consequently stigmatize and limit the emotions boys feel comfortable expressing. This is why most men rationalize their anger as a way of proving their masculinity. Just because this is true in some cases, I noticed that there are some men who are comfortable enough in their own skin to stand up for the right thing and those men are the true feminists that our world needs more of. I’m not a boy, so I can’t tell you how they think but I do know that some boys are afraid of losing their “manliness” if they take a woman’s side and fight against another man about it. This type of insecure ignorance is why so many women have been taken advantage of and not treated with their well-deserved respect. All it takes is one self-assured man to prove his manliness by standing up for women’s rights to truly change the world.
Allison C Dibble 