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