So Says -- Betty Friedan

Picture by bnixon

"When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity, she finally began to enjoy being a woman." - Betty Friedan

I read this quote by Betty Friedan, an American feminist of the 20th century, on Quotations.com one day while I was looking for something else entirely (I seem to do that often). It seemed to put into words something that I have thought for a long time: how can someone really enjoy their life when they're too busy trying to change it into someone else's?

I must admit that I have gone through several stages of being a conformist. When I was twelve I switched schools and met some new "friends" who were quite different from the ones I already had. I was enthralled by their lifestyles - they stayed up super-late, dressed in baggy, black clothing, and watched Inuyasha and Ruroni Kenshin (which I will admit are very good shows - they were just out of the norm for little Disney-Channel-watching me). For some reason, they accepted me into their group, and before long I was purchasing cargo pants (granted, mine were Abercrombie) and staying up past midnight to watch anime shows that I only vaguely enjoyed. In the seventh grade, I started listening to Evanescence (about as emo as you could get in our minds) and wearing dark eyeliner and arguing with my parents. I wasn't myself. Granted, this is not the "conventional feminine picture" that Betty Friedan speaks of, but it fits the concept pretty well. I was not enjoying what I was - so why did I keep doing it?

They next year I switched schools again, to the small private school all my closer friends attended. I still wore my black hoodies and cargo pants, but I soon noticed that those did not really fit in in my new environment. So, I conformed once more and began dressing like my new peers - Hollister shirts that showed every rib individually, way-too-shiny lip gloss, and pants that I could hardly breathe in. Yes, I was as bad as a conformist could get. By the ninth grade, I was just a hot mess in expensive pants who was still unhappy with myself. It wasn't until the tenth grade that I came to my senses - why was I doing all this? Why was I squeezing myself into clothes I hated and spending so much money just to look like all the girls I couldn't stand?

My experiences with conformity are not times I prefer to look back on. Unfortunately, they are apparent in all the school pictures sitting on shelves in my house, memories of those unhappy years when I would give my allowance just to look like everyone else, just to be accepted. Betty Friedan is right in saying that someone can not truly enjoy womanhood until they stop trying so hard to conform to the "conventional picture". Everyone is different in so many ways. So respect that, or better yet, enjoy it. Have fun with who you are, because you're never going to be anything else.