The Stare-

The Stare

She stared at me, looking me up and down. She placed my personality in a little box; filing me away in her little drawer of assessments. I looked back at her, looking at how her necklace caught the light’s reflection. The dark part of me, wanted to pull the chains of silver to see if it could slash her wrinkled chin. I wanted to watch blood ooze down her perfectly picked out green shirt. I wanted to watch her lose her breath, scream, have her eyes dislodge out of their sockets. But I am not cruel, I kept talking to her, as she kept judging me. As she judged me, I started to make assumptions about her. How she raised her children, how her house had to be perfect, not a speck of dirt on the floor.
As she rattled on, talking and talking about nothing that important, I placed her in my own filing cabinet. I thought she was lonely, hadn’t had good sex in twenty years, and felt inferior.

Do you ever wear makeup?

The only thing that put me in a classic gender role as a child was my doll house. Though I was more fascinated by knowing how a fuse created a reaction in the tiny little lamp. Then I was in creating a fictional life for my miniature people. I hated how other little girls carried their baby dolls around. They would hold them so preciously while my dolls got buried in the dirt, colored on and made over. Meaning I would cut off their limps, their hair, draw on their bodies, and created little zombie dolls. My girlhood was filled with creating Mecca’s with my wooden blocks, rebuilding my table and chairs, and filling shoe boxes with interesting rocks, bugs and grasses. I would spend hours in the yard climbing trees, and making up potions with wild onions and ladybugs.
So it’s not at all surprising that I don’t own, or know how to ‘paint’ my face with make-up. Unfortunately because we live in the world where ‘beauty’ opens doors, it’s a skill that I need to tack on my list of how to be a woman. Without it some people assume that I don’t care about my appearance. Which is a lie, I do care, I just don’t always have the time to care. I am always rushing out the door with a child in my arms, and he is a larger responsibility, then making sure my basic pants match my basic shirt. For instance I have to make sure he has enough diapers for the day, is dressed according to the weather, has been fed, etc.
So I realize as an adult, as a female adult, that presenting an image is much more important then how intelligent you compose your thoughts, how much you know, etc. at these time I ask has feminism really died that much? My answer wants to me no, but according to the 2006 census report, that women still made 10,000 less per year. Sigh!