Reading too much into a Facebook chain post
As everybody has been locked in their homes for a while now, there has been an upsurge in chain posts spreading positive messages on Facebook. In normal life I would ignore them completely. Mainly because I don’t like following along with a crowd (I prefer to swim at my own pace and in my own direction, so don’t expect me to blindly follow) , but also because I think they come across as disingenuous. In fact I dislike them as a whole so much that I normally skim over them all together. But I suppose that some people are using them to spread a message of positivity and to connect/reconnect with others, so I am not going to dump all over them. Instead, I am going to propose some simple alterations to one post which I don’t think I fully appreciated being tagged in. I know a lot of my friends posted this is a particular post, and this is not me criticising you in anyway. In fact I appreciate that you tagged me in the post, I just may have read too heavily into the message behind it.
The particular post I am speaking about is one which encourages you to post one photo of yourself, and then tag all the beautiful women you know. So far so good. It is definitely important that we build each other up and recognise beauty in all it’s forms: because we are all beautiful, whether or not we live up to the norm perpetuated in the media. It’s our uniqueness that makes us beautiful, not our similarities. However, the one sentence I took issue with was:
Too often, women find it easier to criticize each other instead of building each other up.
Ummmm, who made the original post writer the supreme judge of all womankind? Since when were they the ultimate expert on whether I find it easier to criticize others? Perhaps I get too outraged by silly posts on social media, but this is not my experience of women AT ALL! Sure, sometimes when we get angry or are in a bad mood, we decide to take a disliking to someone, or we take out our own issues on others by tearing them down, but in my experience men are no different. Whether they admit too it or not, they too can criticize and judge. Since when has that been a female only characteristic?
Ok, yes I have read too much into this. It was meant to be a post to spread positivity. To encourage women to connect, and to encourage them to recognize their own beauty and that of others, but there was zero need to include that sentence in particular. In fact, I think that the word ‘women’ should be replaced with ‘people’. And yes, I realise that the post is about women, and is only meant to be shared by women, but I don’t think that excuses the way this sentence is phrased. In my experience of the women I truly care about in my life, and in others whom I have had the fortune of crossing paths with once or twice, we are very good at building each other up. Maybe I have simply met all of the positive and friendly women in the world, but the odds of me having done that is next to none.
I will admit that there are some who I have met who have fed into the stereotype perpetuated by reality television, and sometimes even romantic comedies, that women are mortal enemies of one another and will tear each other down at any moment. So they keep their guards up of strike first in order to show superiority. But that is only a minute few. When we feed into these ideas, however, we continue this abhorrent cycle of allowing young women to feel that they can’t relate to other women and that guys make better friends because women are constantly starting drama or feed off drama, like sadistic black widow spiders.
This is not my experience. For years I thought it was true because of incidents of bullying in school, and teen films which depict girls conglomerating in cliques who share a common interest and bitching about others. In fact, I attempted to steer clear of maintaining close friendships with too many girls for years because of it. But there are some things that you just can’t talk about with guys, and you need those close female friendships for support through those times. These women in our lives our utterly vital, and it breaks my heart when I hear women, either of my close acquaintance or on television or social media, saying that they won’t be friends with other women because they start drama. My female friends are fiercely loyal and would never just start drama for the fun of it. If that is your experience with other women, then I am very sorry. But don’t project those issues onto other women before you know them.
I would like to share with you some experiences I have had with my female friends, without giving you their names, because I agree with the sentiment of the post that all women are beautiful, but not just because of their physical appearance, but because of their personalities and the way in which they express love and gratitude towards one another. These women are different ages, different political opinions, have differing sexual orientations, and have completely different backgrounds; different countries, different ethnicities, different first languages, different religious upbringings. And that is the complete beauty of them. They are all so different, yet they have so much in common and choose to be friends with me. The complete loser who wrote this post because she took issue with one word.
- *some women would find this embarrassing, but I don’t care who reads this story in particular. But you may skip over it if necessary.* When I was thirteen I got my first period at school and didn’t know what to do about it. It wasn’t because I didn’t know what it was, or because I wasn’t prepared for it. It was because my mum wasn’t around, as my grandfather had had a heart attack and was in hospital, so she was looking after my nan. (He is fine now.) I contacted my mum, and she contacted a woman from my church, who was incredibly understanding. She bought me everything I needed and made me feel comfortable and less anxious. I didn’t feel ashamed at all about what was happening, because of her reassurance. It’s because of her that I am not ashamed of it, and am now writing about my experience in this post. You are all welcome.
- When I was sixteen I was dealing with a close friend who was incredibly suicidal whilst studying for my first year of A levels. I really struggled because I felt like no one was there for me, and I started to have those thoughts myself. I eventually went to a female youth leader who listened to me, and let me cry in front of her, before sharing with me a similar experience she had had with a friend. We both cried about it together, and then she encouraged the other girls in my youth group to be there for me and support me without betraying my confidence.
- When I was nineteen I met multiple amazing women, some of whom I am now lucky enough to call my closest friends (or even best friends) at university and initiated strong friendships that I hadn’t had since my mid-teens. They helped me through some difficult periods in which I discovered multiple things about myself that I didn’t already know. We bonded over adversity, but ultimately our friendship is based on humour and light heartedness, because the world needs more laughter. They helped me to grow and to become the woman I am today.
- When I was twenty I went through a really dark period in which I wasn’t sure what I believed any more and had a real crisis of self for the first time ever. I shared this with one female friend in particular, because I was ashamed to tell everyone else. She journeyed with me through it and was constantly checking in on me. She was amazing because she didn’t judge me for it like I had feared and was there for me not out of duty but because she cared for me. She helped me to mend not only myself but also the fractured friendships I had with those I had been pushing away.
- When I was twenty one I became friends with a woman who shared my creative vision. She encouraged me to continue being creative and inspired me through her own creativity to try new things and to not be constrained by type. She also continued to encourage me to not take myself too seriously and to talk more openly with others about my thoughts or feelings, even if she didn’t do so through words.
- Again, when I was twenty one, I met a girl from another country who I had an instant unexplainable bond with. She is the kind of friend who I know I could not talk to for years and then pick up exactly where we left off. It was one of the first friendships I had in a long time which grew up around fun things and not out of forced proximity. We shared our dreams for the future and cultivated a friendship which I hope endures for a long time. She taught me that even if we are culturally different, we can still share a lot in common.
When I was twenty two, me and my housemates experienced some really hard times. What I learnt from it was the beauty in female friendships and how we can rally around one another during times of physical and mental distress. Seeing the way in which we helped to carry one another and shoulder each other’s burdens, and share advice was truly one of the most character forming parts of my life, even if it was a horrible time that I hope won’t repeat itself. Seeing just how much we cared for one another was truly amazing, and the fact that our friends further afield were with us in spirit and supporting us was also utterly incredible.
During this time, I had the fortune to know some other women who were there for me and listened to everything I had to say to them about what I was experiencing. They spent time with me so that I could have a distraction and they supported me, even though I didn’t know them as well as I knew my other friends. They were so supportive and made me feel so included in their friendship group that I could truly appreciate the diversity of women and the vastness of our support networks.
These are just some fragments of my life story so far which showcase just how amazing women are. In fact, some of the most important women in my life don’t even feature. There are so many people that I could mention, but it would take an autobiography to list every circumstance in detail, and I don’t think you want to read that.
The whole point of this blog is to showcase that women are all uniquely beautiful in more ways than one, and that the bonds we make with other women have the power to be a force for good. We do encourage one another. We do support one another. We laugh together. We cry together. But it isn’t our natural default to criticize. It isn’t something that is hardwired into us. If I am honest, I criticize myself before I criticize others. And I don’t think that being a good judge of character is necessarily wrong, or that sharing criticism is either. Sometimes we need our friends to tell us we need to change our attitude, or to be honest and say that the outfit we have chosen to wear to a wedding looks awful. It’s not necessarily a negative. Because the base of our friendships aren’t around disparaging others, but around wanting to see each other happy and fulfilled.
So, yeah. Rant over. You can call me a raging feminist or whatever if you want. In fact go ahead. Because women rock! It’s not that I wouldn’t say the same about men. In fact some of the male friends I have are equally as important in forming my character. It’s just that my female friends have taught me a lot more.
But I do want to end with this point. There are multiple clichéd, and outdated, sayings about how behind every great man is a woman. But I believe that behind every great woman is a lot of other great women. Women who have helped her come through adversity and achieve things she could only dream of. Women who have taught her things about herself that she couldn’t figure out on her own. And to those great women I wish to say…
Thank You.
Fay Dragon 