Shrinking into a Mans World

[Music]

i’ve probably worn a skirt or dress to

school

a total of four times and each time i’ve

been told

that my dress is too short to cover up

if i sit down in my dress and it rides

up to more than four

inches above my knee it’s a distraction

to the boys

we become sirens luring them away from

their school books becoming an obstacle

to their success

with our knees in view we are decisively

leading them into a crash

so i wouldn’t want to be a distraction

would i

and so to make it easier for the boys to

focus and to avoid receiving a detention

for dress code violation

in the middle of class i forfeited

dresses as an option for school attire

i compromised to make life a little bit

easier for everyone else

even though wearing tilden pants instead

of my tennis skirt

isn’t really a pressing issue i see the

situation happen way too often

i see women having to make compromises

for those around them

way too often even aside from this

universal standard of looking like

a respectable woman having to dress to

cover ourselves up i’ve noticed a

prominent pattern

of women in society being reduced into

this

position of a sort of one-sided

compromise

and this happens to every woman it’s

happened to your mothers

your sisters your aunts it’s happened to

me in the past

and honestly i don’t see this trend

ending in my future

as a woman living in a man’s world we

have a different set

of expectations and as a woman living in

a man’s world we have to jump through

many many hoops to reach these

expectations

as a woman living in a man’s world

here’s what my life has looked and will

look like

growing up as a chinese-american girl

i’ve seen that many chinese women become

housewives after marriage

sacrificing their careers to raise

children

cook clean worship their sons

during lunches with relatives i sit

through my meal as i hear

jokes about my short temper or lack of

culinary mastery driving away potential

husbands

and i just sit there and i mask my

discomfort with

a smile when i practiced kung fu

i thought i was pretty good but when

someone at school told me to throw a

punch they tell me i was pretty strong

for a girl i refrain from throwing a

second punch this time with all my power

during conversations with those who are

my age i hear

disparaging profanity nonchalantly

thrown around to address women

it seems so natural for them to call

their mothers

their sisters their friends any woman

a i chew on the inside of my cheek

debating if i should say something and

and i don’t it’s tiring

i constantly am biting my tongue before

i speak so when the words come out

they’re easy on the ears

at this point i’ve stopped trying

i wear clothes that hopefully won’t get

me catcalled

i smile and nod my head when i’m being

trivialized by a man

i don’t speak up more compromises

i always say to myself it’ll be fine

because when i go to college i’ll have a

fresh start i’ll be able to stand my

ground

but as a prospective stem major i’d be

in a male-dominated field

where my femininity it would be a

weakness

and if i do try to act more masculine

whatever that means

i’d be labeled as a try-hard or as

again the man’s synonym for a woman a

so instead i would stay silent during

class

not participate during discussions and

in the very few instances when i do have

something to ask i know

i will begin my question with the word

sorry

like my question would be an

inconvenience

when i graduate college i’ll be off to

make my 81 cents to a man’s dollar

and i wouldn’t be complaining because

that’s what’s expected of a woman

but what’s really expected of a woman

anyway

we’re supposed to be nurturing and yet

we’re told not to be too emotional

we’re supposed to be virgin mary’s and

yet we’re all called

we’re expected to sacrifice our bodies

and our lives

to raise up the next generation of

powerful people who’d go on to change

the world

but when we try to assume this role for

ourselves

we’re suddenly much less of a woman

and i know that being a woman and being

powerful shouldn’t be mutually exclusive

but how am i supposed to know that when

i’ve spent my entire life

watching women give up one for another

motherhood or vocation

i see myself in my late 20s early 30s

with my family concerned that i don’t

have a ring on my finger or children

coming out of me yet

i’ll tell them i’m focusing on my career

and i’ll be told by

everyone down my family tree that i need

a man to keep me grounded

and if and when i do decide to get

married

have children i’d have to make the

choice to either

become a stay-at-home mom or leave my

children at daycares while i work and

god knows if i do that i’d be labeled as

a workaholic or a negligent

mother as many working mothers before me

have been labeled

in this glimpse of my life that i just

laid out i’m faced with countless

situations where i make

compromises women often have to go out

of their way and change their behavior

or plans to make men

and everyone else around them more

comfortable because in a man’s world

women are villainized for wielding

authority a power

inherent within them within all of us

whereas men men can weaponize his power

and still be applauded

how are women supposed to speak up for

themselves to live in the society

where we supposedly have equal

opportunities when we’ve been

conditioned

not to speak up to not pursue certain

opportunities

how can we break this barrier when the

ones in charge are the same ones who

want us to fail

prominent film producers businessmen

congressmen

even our last president

because for generations women have been

taught

to shrink themselves i grew up being

taught to be ladylike by almost every

woman who ever passed me by in life

except for my mother

they told me to be polite to not talk

back

to smile thankfully my mother taught me

to be loud and to speak up

but almost every woman i know exhibits

this

repressed ladylike demeanor and they

suggest

no they caution that i do too

however i see young boys and my family

being raised to be

head strong and to confidently speak

their minds

men are brought up to be stoic and

self-serving people

but women are raised to be empathetic

nurturing

selfless and while men are being taught

to be aggressive assertive unyielding

generations of women have been taught

anything but

we were taught to clean cook knit

look pretty and serve a sweet dish of

submission

to men and because of how differently we

were raised

society listens to men as a default

leaving little room for women to be

acknowledged

and if we do want to be heard we have to

fight and fight hard

women fight so hard to the point where

we don’t want to fight anymore

and we just comply with this norm

we hide how uncomfortable and

immobilized we feel

with a feminine smile and we suffocate

from our unsaid words

and this this is exactly the problem

women have been conditioned to shrink

themselves to fit into the space in

society allowed to us

by men we’ve been scraping the barrel

for generations and that

needs to stop because as long as woman

keeps shrinking as men

expand young girls will always feel the

need to satisfy

everyone else except for themselves

we need to stop passing down this broken

model of a woman

to our daughters or sisters our nieces

if we don’t stop teaching our girls this

accept what you have mentality

we’ll grow up to smile when someone cat

calls us from across the street

we won’t talk back when we’re being

disrespected by men in our workplace

and will be polite when someone feels a

need to comment on what seems like every

single thing we’re doing

instead of teaching young girls what

generations of women before us have been

taught

we need to remind them that they don’t

have to hold their tongues

we need to tell our daughters that they

can unapologetically

speak their minds as anyone should

we need to show them that they are

entitled to

everything a man is entitled to that a

man can’t

automatically claim what a woman doesn’t

fight for

to take

now whether this is something as small

as we’re wearing whatever length skirt

you want

covering as much or as little skin as

you want or as big as pursuing a career

in congress

becoming a software developer walking on

the moon

we as women are changing the landscape

in which society views us

we are challenging this idea that women

are

submissive and malleable beings

we are escaping this one-sided

compromise that we’ve been cornered into

for generations and we as women

will move forward no longer shrinking

ourselves

for the benefit of those around us