#Unbecoming
“Whatever else a woman is — a PhD, a mother, a victim of a sex crime — the most important thing is that she be likable: attractive, relatable, unthreatening, nice.” 🤦♀️💔 ~ A Woman Can Never Be Likable Enough by Katha Pollitt, The Nation
When she finally did speak, she said she had a lot to say.
And maybe we stop speaking about the story in words, but express it in many other ways, which are described as ‘unbecoming’ as they demonstrate a divergence from the socially shaped story of femininity.
Beginning in elementary school and continuing to this day, I’ve been cautioned that my words & actions were ‘unbecoming’. But nobody could answer the question ‘unbecoming what’?
I had hints of it as a kid: too imaginative, too talkative, too questioning, too big, too clumsy, and, in general, simultaneously too much and not enough, all descriptors that made it clear that I wasn’t becoming the socially defined (and rewarded) story of femininity. And I was certainly not alone in that nebulous space called ‘unbecoming’. The worst of it was in junior high when all these descriptors were used by two bullies at school that I now know saw me as competition in class & an easy mark outside of it, thanks to years of conditioning at home. I had no idea how to deal with this and, as noted in the article How Puberty Kills Girls’ Confidence, had no confidence that I was even worth the effort. And this is how I entered adulthood:
“…the long-term effects of these dynamics hurt not only girls, but the women they become, many of whom, within a few years of entering the workforce, experience another confidence drop, and a drop in aspirations. Their rule-following, good-girl methods have been celebrated, rewarded by a structured educational and societal system. It’s a shock to arrive in the adult world and discover a dramatically new playing field: Failure is okay. Risk is worth it. No wonder they struggle: Their whole life, to date, they’ve internalized just the opposite, a societal bait and switch that should be recognized.”
Fortunately, the Universe demands balance. So as I was ‘unbecoming’ by some standards, I was ‘becoming’ something else. Something that is expressed in my commitment to fighting for those who, like me, have not become what was expected. Instead we all get to fulfill our individual destiny and support each other to become who we were born to be.
