I think that it would be fair to say that since I was partially raised by my grandmother that I had a conservative upbringing, especially when it came to the laws of being a lady. Sit with your ankles crossed. Never leave the house with your hair a mess, a rule that I have completely disregarded at this point. Make sure your skirt is pulled down in the back, say please and thank you, don't speak with your mouth full, and always use your indoor voice, another rule that I have tossed. These were the rules of womanhood that a good Methodist young woman did not break. But these were social rules. When it came to the rules of relationships, grandma said nothing, probably for the same reasons that she hid my Seventeen Magazines when I was eleven; she did not want me to start wearing makeup or get pregnant. When I probed her once when I was too young to see how uncomfortable my questions were making her she spat only one thing, "Carry yourself like a lady!" And that was that.
But now as a young single woman on the dating scene during a time where men have gone crippled due to the loss of their backbones, balls, and dignity, I find myself having to play the role of a tiger, not even a tigress, willing to rip the flesh off of the bones of any female that has her eyes on the brotha that is just a wee bit less disgusting than the others.
And of course, I am losing, big time, for it is survival of the fittest out here in the dating jungle, and I feel that if I were really in the wild, the other tigers would have left me to get eaten or trampled for being dead weight. I consider myself a feminist, but am I going back on the work of all the women who have asked for my rights by asking for gender roles to be more defined: for men to be men and women be women?
What do I mean by this? Well, back in the day, when my grandparents met, grandpa approached grandma. He did not stand to the side grabbing his crotch because he knew that as a college educated Black man he was a commodity. Hell, he was even more of a commodity than brothers are today! He approached her because that is what men did, even though he was five years younger than grandma.
Sadly, my grandma has Alzheimer's, but she would lose her mind anyway if she saw the state of things today. Women fighting over men. Men living off of women financially. Women in the club wearing next to nothing to get attention. Women having sex before marriage to gain a commitment, not as a result of one. She would probably shake these women, after she roller set their hair and applied their lipstick correctly of course.
It scares me that women, especially young ones, have silently decided that since they now bring home the bacon that they no longer deserve to be treated like ladies and now have to be men. And this is in other facets of society, not just the dating scene.
When I finally get a man, I am going to take him to my grandma's nursing home with my hair wild, dirt under my nails, and claw marks all over my back. When she asks me why my hair isn't together, as she undoubtedly will even in her state, I will have to explain that I could not just sit around with my ankles crossed any longer; that I had to stop carrying myself like a lady to get a man.
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