Saturday, September 8, 2012

Judgment of Girls

This has been on my mind lately, because of all the hate being spewed everywhere by the GOP.  You don't have to agree with my point of view, that is your perogative.  But I want to share something, and get this off my chest.

We act like we are such a civilized country.  We really do. We act like we are so far advanced, and we try to ignore things that happened only a hundred years ago, five hundred.  It's easier that way, right?  Just pretend it didn't happen.  La ti da, live your life, ignore it.  The thing is, we as a species have not changed that much. We haven't.  There are still people on this planet who crap in the bushes because there are no toilets.  There are people who die because there is no clean water.  There are children being married off to each other or to adults.  There is still sexual slavery, and other slavery throughout the world.

These things are still fucking happening.  You know what else is, that's sickening to me?  Shows like "16 and pregnant" and the weird toddler shows where people primp their kids up and practically pimp them out.  What sickens me more about that is the judgment that comes along with it.  Here's the thing, though..  and this is reality, whether or not you choose to admit it. Every single one of us, every single human on this planet has done something terrible, stupid, made a mistake.  Some people in our country don't necessarily realize it, or they live off it.  And that's sad.  But what is more sad to me is people judging others without recognizing the fact that we are all people on this planet.

Mind you, I don't watch TV.  It sickens me, honestly..  It utterly disgusts me.  The fact that people would rather sit in front of a TV chowing down on cheetos and whatever else while watching Jersey Shore, and allow their mind to rot because they just don't care.. It makes me sad. So to be honest, I haven't seen these shows. But I can tell you one thing, our society is rotting a bit too, in some ways.  Oh, yeah.  Women have the right to vote. Interracial marriages are no big deal anymore.  But wasn't it like half a century ago people were getting HANGED for it?

Now, people are still getting hanged. Judged, condemned.  All those girls on 16 and pregnant, and whatever else...  What really gets me though with this is that one of my closest, oldest friends had a baby when she was 13.  We lived in a small-ish area.. Her town was tinier than mine.  She made a mistake, and had a baby. You might say she could have had an abortion, I'm sure several of you think she should have.  But she doesn't believe in them and that is her prerogative.  So, she knew she wouldn't be able to do anything for him, so she gave him up for adoption.  And I was there.

I saw how it ate her alive.  I couldn't do much, I just held her.  And I mourned with her because it irrecovably changed her body, it created many other problems for her due to depression and other stuff, and she got judged for it.  She did what she could for that baby, and that wasn't enough for people. She made a mistake, and they wouldn't let it go.  She's a beautiful person, a wonderful, beautiful soul and it still hurts her to this day.  And this isn't a story that just happened to her, it's happened to many other people.

We live in a society that likes to expect perfection, and condemn reality. Everybody fucks up. Everybody under the fucking Sun. THAT is reality.  Reality is making mistakes.  Reality is the fact that some people learn from them after it happens once, some people it takes more time.  Reality is the fact that people do not have to live by your standards, or anyone else, because this is life.  This is humanity.

We live in a society where girls are held to higher standards than boys in terms of expected perfection.  The makeup, the hair, the obsession with beauty.  The expectations of making no mistakes.  We see it on every level of society, from the poor to the rich.. The only difference is that with the rich more people find out about it, and they're often at least legally forgiven for the bigger "mistakes" if they throw money at the problem.

But until such a time when we can accept the fact that people fuck up, we will not move forward as a species.  That is a simple fact.  We stand a few steps higher than those who don't have access to baths or showers, and we judge them in our own country for it.  In our own fucking country.  If people don't have access to it in other countries, we tend to ignore the problem, or kind of distantly think "that's sad".  But in our own country, it's a different matter.  It's distasteful.  People want to avoid it more.  And it sickens me, it really fucking sickens me that we expect people to live to such high standards, when every single one of us has made some stupid, tragic mistake.

Gah.

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