Confessions from a recovered mean girl

I used to be a bitch. Straight out- I was a mean girl. My insecurities and lack of self-worth resulted in me transferring my own self judgement onto others.

I grew up surrounded by men and patriarchal misogynistic men at that. Women were less than men, they were objects and their bodies were open for opinion. I learnt quickly that to survive in this world that I would need to see the world the same way that they do or become a victim of it.

I’ve been that woman who puts down other women. I used to pride myself on not being like “typical” women. I would shame women to men about being needy, controlling or emotional. I would criticise what they were wearing, if their behaviour was appropriate or not and if I thought they were “easy” or a “prick tease”.

Last week I  was reminded of who I used to be as I attended an ice hockey game between Canada and the USA. Apart from me having a hell of a time yelling and screaming in a way that is only really socially appropriate at sporting games, I happened to sit next to two well presented women and out of sheer proximity I was privy to their conversations.

Mostly, I tuned them out as I was more interested in the game and the company that I was with, however during one of the breaks, I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation. It went a little something like this:

Person 1: Have you seen her lately?

Person 2: Yeah, I saw her last week. She was wearing those shorts again-ergh!

P1: Really? Yuck, she really shouldn’t wear them. She has huge thighs and tonnes of cellulite

P2: I know! She just swans around in them as if she thinks no one notices. She’s really got to stop

P1: I mean, I’m all in for body positivity but she takes it too far- it’s disgusting.

At this point I tuned out, I had to. In order to not cause an outright riot and fly off the handle , I kept my thoughts to myself. I was hurt, upset and disgusted.

I was upset for their “friend” who clearly wouldn’t know what was being said behind her back. I was saddened for these two women who felt the need to speak so venomously about someone that they care about. Most of all, I felt for us as women.

All the old feelings of inadequacy came rushing back. Right here next to me was proof that people do judge and more often than not they are the people that we call friends. I recall having similar conversations about my friends in years gone by and how desperate I was to feel like I belonged- oh the irony.

I put down others to make myself feel better- the ultimate bully has insufferable low esteem. As someone who now loves themselves, has great self esteem and works hard to see all people as whole and complete, the conversation I overheard was heart breaking.

We have had to fight for every right we have, our bodies are compared against a computer program and we are still treated like ornaments by many people around the world.

Yet here we are, fighting each other. Putting ourselves down and shaming our own. Haven’t we been through enough? Don’t we get enough shaming from the media without us throwing in some more of our own?

I know why they felt the need to say what they did. I understand the feelings of being threatened and therefore climbing on top of others to bring themselves back up but it still makes me sad.

I set a challenged for you. I challenge you to stop the bitching, stop the judging and stop the shaming. We have all done this and like these women, you may not even be aware that you do it. If you have time to judge then you don’t have time to love.

Self-love starts from within, there is no doubt about it. If you are judging others and putting them down ( even in your head) then you are walking down a very slippery slope.

Every time you judge someone else, you are judging yourself. Choose your thoughts and words wisely.

Let’s lift each other up and show ourselves how magnificent we truly are.

Love Katie Nicole

x

A word on fuckability

This word has been in or around my consciousness for many years, yet today it seems to have permeated me and in combination with some fairly powerful revelations of my misogynistic rearing I have come to notice how much I have been ruled by this word or rather its impact on my being.

Girls do and girls do not. I certainly wasn’t raised a princess, more of a subordinate to my 4 male siblings and father. Now, there is no way that any of them would feel that I was raised as less; I was loved, taken care of and played an important role in my family.

What they (my male relations) probably do not or did not realise is that the undertones, pre suppositions and general demeanour towards women started me on the back foot; I’m sure my mother didn’t realise this either being under the same rule set.

You see, I watched a porno for the first time when I was about 6 or 7. It was a cartoon porno but still portrayed a woman being penetrated explicitly by not only independent army dicks with walking balls but monkeys as well. She pretended to like it. I pretended to know what it meant.

I overheard conversations of my brothers and their friends talking about who they would fuck, why they wouldn’t fuck this chick unless she had a bag on her head and what “hot” women look like.

I saw it on screens, in magazines, conversations and observing my male counterparts in public. I saw it and felt it first hand when I “bloomed” at age 11. I suddenly became interesting to men. I pretended to like it. I thought I was meant to like it.

For my entire life I have been called beautiful, yet all I wanted to be was “hot”. I wanted to be leered at the way my brother’s friends leered at the hot girls at school. I wanted them to want me, not because I had a great personality or I was beautiful. I wanted their lust, I wanted their attention. I wanted nothing more than to be fuckable. I thought I was meant to want it.

I well up as I write this. I’m disgusted to think I grew up in a world where that was all I thought my value was, to be fucked. For men to want to fuck me. I dieted so that I could be skinny and more men would want me. I cut myself when the pain of looking like a grown woman at 15 was too much to bear compared to the (what I thought) perfect girls who were short, skinny and with perky boobs. They were fuckable. I was a big, friendly, giant and hated it. Lucky I had big tits- my saving grace of fuckability. Sigh.

I once thought that my love hate relationship with my body spawned from media and societal pressures and I guess in some way it has. What I now know is that I was born a woman and raised to believe that that was somehow a bear I had to cross. I was to watch the men play sport and laugh along when I was called a spastic or unco for trying something new- I stopped trying. I was to accept that men dictated my value. I was to accept that “boys will be boys” when they spoke of my genitals, teased me while they gawked at my breasts and treated my friends like sex objects. I secretly wished I was the sex object.

All that, it would seem was my reality. I actually never knew that I needed or wanted feminism (or equal rights for those of you who find that word abhorrent) because I was raised to think I was a strong, independent woman. I could go get a job, I could vote, I could leave the house unaccompanied and I wasn’t expected to get married right away. I thought that the bra burners of my foremothers had done all the work and I was set free and easy. All that “feminist” crap was for women who wanted world domination not equality. Mm? I wonder where I learnt that one.

Despite identifying as Bi, I have never felt the same need from a woman. I have never felt the need to be fuckable, yet as this is all I have known I find dating women an interesting as unusual experience. I don’t know where my value is anymore. I’m not sure what I’m meant to do if I’m not trying to solely be the eye candy of my partner.

I reflect on the day I went from long luscious hair to a shaved head. I instantly went off the “fuckable” radar and it was liberating. People talked to me because they were curious and the energy of their conversations were that of respect and curiosity rather than “how long will it take me to bone her?”

I have enjoyed taking the immediate equation of sex out of the picture and to be seen as a whole (yes my sexiness included) not as an object of a man’s  (or woman’s for that matter) pleasure. I used to do pretty well anything to get the attention of a man and like most women have been treated disgustingly by men willing to take advantage of that.

Well, in some ways my “fuckability” has gone up. I now say “fuck you” to those people who try and define me and others as objects. I say “fuck ‘em” to the haters that assume females deserve less. I say “ fuck your beauty standards” and dress however it suits me and I say “Fuck yeah” to the incredible humans who have brought my voice to light on a subject that society tells us should be in the dark….or back in the kitchen.

P.S A few bits that have inspired me lately. Worth watching.

http://www.newsner.com/en/2015/12/a-daughters-words-is-moving-millions-dear-dad-i-will-be-called-a-whore/

http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/australians-on-porn/DO1509H001S00

                                      Before and after... a fuckability 180.