I have a vivid memory of being genuinely upset about the death of my Grandma's dog. I understand this is hardly, as tragedies go, massive but I was young and I loved that dog! I was crying, and perhaps a friend could have suggested that I was overreacting or that worse things happen etc. No, I was told simply to 'Man up'
I have two problems with this phrase:
1) It suggests that men don't have emotions, that men are always tough. And this is bollocks. Moreover, it's wrong to suggest that to be manly, a man must be strong and silent. Men have emotions and should be allowed to express them.
2) Why should a woman be told to act like a man? What's wrong with being a woman? And why does showing emotion make you a 'woman'? Why does being strong make you a 'man'?
OK I know it's only a phrase and maybe I should 'lighten up', but it's not so much the phrase but the values the phrase promotes. The idea that to be a respected and successful woman, women should take on more stereotypically 'male' characteristics. Perhaps the most prevalent issue for me is the fact that I feel so uncool saying these things. Feminism isn't cool or sexy. But, really, what's cooler than standing up for your rights? What's sexier than having an opinion?
I have to go to work now so I can't develop this argument as much as it warrants, but I would implore you all to read 'Female Chauvinist Pigs- Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture' by Ariel Levy. It pretty much presents the same argument I've attempted in this blog but much more articulately. Levy is the modern day, post-feminist answer to Friedan, and she's excellent.
'What a woman was criticized for doing yesterday she is ridiculed for not doing today.'-Edith Wharton, 1915
I shall shamelessly plug myself here, only because it is my favourite thing I've ever written.
