All the Single Ladies Have It, and All the Single Boys Want It.

WARNING (AND THIS IS ACTUALLY A WARNING): The following is my two-hour feminist speal spawning from a Beyonce video. And, no, it's not like you've already assumed it is. But, yes, it is slightly incoherent, and you might learn some strange things about me. As if there weren't enough already. Oh, well, no turning back now *muwahahahahahahah!* PS I don't know why the rest of this won't turn blue. Blogger Hates Me.

Lately – lately being last night and today – I’ve been really into this new music video by Beyonce. It is basically, as Kym would put it, porn. Three gorgeous black women in all their bootylicious glory, wearing skin-tight leotards, gyrating and grinding to every male fantasy out there. But, if we ignore men and their blatant weakness for the “weaker” sex (which everyone does anyways nowadays), it’s really quite an interesting, um, view.

First of all, let’s ask why I find this so fascinating. It’s not because of the song (though it does have a catchy beat), it’s not because of the scantily clad women (we have established that that effect is generally male-appreciated), and it’s not because I’m a huge fan of Beyonce’s. What I first noticed, aside from the leotards, was the dancing. And because of said leotards, the emphasis the dancing gave to their muscles. It’s a fact – I like muscles. Not in any creepy fetish-y way. I just think they are beautiful, especially in motion. To me, the human body is God’s finest piece; a sculpture that’s never completely stationary, always moving, always breathing, always living. Only death can take away that beauty, and only then for a bit.

Point is, their dancing fascinates me. Their muscles reaching and contracting, stopping movement cold in a second – in layman’s terms, it’s wicked awesome. But this was only the tip of the iceberg. Being so interested in the dancing led to other observations – I liked their bodies. Once again, not trying to be freakalicious here, and, no, I’m not being redundant. I liked seeing these full-bodied women, definitely in good shape (more than can be said for yours truly at the moment) who’s bodies and attitudes unequivocally declared, “I am Woman. Don’t need to roar to tell that.”

This impressed me because all my life I’ve struggled (ish) with the idea of femininity. Now, I know that true femininity is defined by tenderness and the capacity to nurture, but I can’t help but be drawn into the world’s ever-enticing tendency to judge by appearance, and sometimes it’s just hard to see my own femininity. And it’s not just me. When I mention my feelings of sexual (gender) ambiguity to friends, they comment that they don’t internally sense themselves as female either. It’s a fact we know – we know we’re women – but I don’t think we all really acknowledge it. I see aspects of my personality that seem far more masculine than feminine and some that (sadly) no self-respecting male would admit to having either. And in a world where everything feels black and white sometimes, that’s pretty confusing.

But I digress. I liked seeing these women own their bodies and handle them well, like they could move their own piano without breaking the legs – and probably do it in some killer heels, too. Acknowledging this brought on new questions though. What gave them their sense of femininity if it wasn’t a sense of delicacy?

This led to a quick pass through a very obvious train of thought – they’re womanly because they’re sexy, how could I possibly think that?, do I think my only alternate route to womanhood is through sex appeal? Can I be white and own my body like that? And more shallow musings that we all have but don't like to admit.

Let’s say we were only able to display our womanly charms in two ways – by casting our role as either the weaker or the wilier sex. If that were the case, and knowing BYU for its ensign of chastity, which of the two do you think most female students here would choose? The weaker or – for p.c.’s sake – the more delicate role, of course. This is a natural response to our religious upbringing. And it is, I feel, in large part out of respect for our boys – I feel their plight, even if I don’t understand it.

It may very well be that these paradoxical views of women came from the desire to create one’s female identity clashing with the struggle to respect and appease man’s perspective as well. Tons and tons of psychological research has been done on this subject, I’m sure, since it comes from the never-ending confusion that is the male-female relationship. One obvious example that comes to mind (and, Kym, don’t slay me, I’ll look it up later, this isn’t a paper for a journal, these are just my random thoughts which don’t generally include psychoanalytic theories etc, etc) is Freud’s Oedipus Complex, as interpreted by Jung. As a society, we see the opposite sex not only as lovers, but as fathers and mothers, family members, coworkers, friends, etcetera, etcetera. It’s no wonder we sometimes get confused by how we’re supposed to treat them!

This is where a lot of feminists get really pissed at guys, and, honestly, I can kind of see where they’re coming from. This overt-awareness of their own sexuality feels like it inhibits our self-expression or demeans us when they are distracted by our “femininity” and not taking us seriously. Yes, we like being attractive, and if we didn’t like sex, rape would have been legitimized from the get-go if anyone wanted the species to last past one generation. But we don’t want you staring at our chests when we’re discussing quantum theory. There is a time and place, buddy.

However, man alone did not create those binding views of woman, and as long as they don’t run free with it, we need to be more obliging in helpinf them see us as sentient, not just sexual, beings. So, they are not to blame, initially, for their carnality.

But thousands of years of being human and screwing up as only humans can has ingrained these stereotypical notions of femininity into our heads. And because so much of it is because of the male’s inability to, as a whole, acknowledge the sexual female as nurturing and intelligent as well, we tend to blame our limited choices on them. We can either be the mother or the whore. Anything else and we’re just not feminine enough.

I don’t know if any of this is making sense. It's all pretty circular, but hopefully some grains of thought come out comprehensible. It's hard to churn all my 19 years of not-learning-much into a philosophical discussion, especially when the other end of the wire is my own ignorance and a silent (for now) internet audience.

I hope I’m not coming off as jaded either. I’m not bitter with the men of the world, not for any crime they didn’t commit themselves, I’m just bitter with the result of the world’s ignorance and conceit. Ignorance and conceit that has been piling up, building pressure for thousands of years. Pressure that is now firmly thrust on my very broad, very female shoulders. It’s hard to find good femininity in such a scarce market, but that scarcity makes it necessary to grab whatever’s available, however flawed and unfit it may be. Until I find a better place to shop, a place that has weight-lifting, baked-goods, shot-gun shooting, and little black dresses, I’ll just have to live with this ill-fitting, insecure society.

Post-Mentally-Exhausted-Script: Here's the video, if you want to see the cause of my maunderings. It will probably seem inadequate compared to the train of thought it provoked, but what can I say?