The Green Eyed Monster

As I was rifling through the Sunday Times Style supplement I came across a little story that I found very pathetic and a bit weird. The Style supplement rarely has anything worth reading, most of the time pandering to the stereotypical obsessions of women- clothes, ageing, and dieting. It is usually chucked in to the recycling bin, along with the plastic packaging covering the rest of the supplements.

Anne Graham writes about how she finds herself becoming envious of her teenage daughter’s body.

The other evening, I walked in on my 15-year-old daughter as she lay soaking in the bath. Somehow, I held onto the gasp I wanted to emit at the sight of her: that beautiful young body, with its impossibly pert breasts and taut midriff, surely belonged to a woman and not my little girl. “Darling, I’m so sorry,” I said quickly, making to hurry out of the bathroom. “I’ll leave you in peace.” For the first time since she was born, seeing my child naked had left me feeling embarrassed, awkward and, oh dear, rather jealous.

I had to take a double take and reread the paragraph. What did she expect would happen as her daughter grew up? That she would not go through puberty and develop into a woman just as she did? I saw something similar to this on the Daily Mail website, a woman who decided to get plastic surgery so she would look as “youthful” as her daughter.

Here we can see the pair in all their peroxide glory. I’m not sure what is more enticing, the straw-like hair or the nausea inducing polka dot dresses. How low would your self esteem have to be, to want to try and compete with your daughter for the sexual attentions of men? I guess the next step is seeing who is better at giving head or who can ejaculate furthest across the room. That’s what it is all about, isn’t it?

These women for a long part of their lives found pleasure and confidence in how sexually and physically attractive they were to men. There isn’t anything wrong with feeling sexy and all that, but it’s not the most important thing in a woman’s life. I would hope not. Then, as they get older, gradually  getting wrinkles, sagging and greying, they notice that men don’t seem to ogle their exposed breasts or tightly swathed behinds as much as before. They can’t get away with emitting that girlish giggle or coyly blinking their mascaraed eyelashes. They despair. They don’t like the fact that they are getting older and there are women out there that have the nerve to be younger than them. This poisonous mindset even includes their own bloody daughters.

Another excerpt from the Style article.

When we walk down the street together and I see men look at her the way they used to survey me, it feels wrong on so many levels. I want to run after them and tell them that, while she might look like a woman, they’re ogling a child, so what does that make them? I also want churlishly to demand: “Why her and not me?”

So what if they don’t look at you so much anymore? It does not make you any less of a person.You are married aren’t you?  Surely the only man you want looking at you in that way is your darling husband. I really do not understand why women get so much joy from the random glances they get from men as they walk down the street. They are not complimenting your nice scarf or pretty shoes. They just want to fuck you, and frankly I don’t see why this is so wonderful.

Something I have noticed, as a female in this bizarre world is just how damaged and unfriendly  some women are to each other. Who has bigger, perter tits, who has a flatter stomach, who can walk the sexiest in stilettos. Only a woman can give you a compliment in a way that makes you feel like it is an insult. Feminism has strived to show men that we are equal, but really, the worst enemy of feminism in the 21st century is women themselves. Women are the ones who are obsessed with ageing, with buying trinkets and cutting up their bodies. They are the ones that mock other women because they are not skinny or because they have cellulite or small breasts. It could not be healthy for one’s mind to see every other woman as competition or a potential threat to one’s sexual attraction.

Instead of thinking “Oh wow my daughter is growing into a really beautiful girl!”, Anne Graham is thinking  “God she is so beautiful, I’m so jealous because she gets more looks than me and I’m not young anymore. “

I looked back at her and remembered how it all felt: the excitement and fear, the sense of vulnerability mixed with empowerment that you experience when you’re a girl on the cusp of womanhood; it all came flooding back. It was the very best and the very worst of times rolled into one.

And it struck me that, as long as I can keep a check on my envy, my daughter will provide me with a window back to those heady days — that this could be a gift, not a curse.

Why do some women always look back, back to some idyllic time when they were young, and everything was okay because they were still sexually attractive and they could wear mini skirts? Don’t they remember how terrifying it was to be a teenager or a young adult? Talk about rose-tinted glasses. Get over yourself Anne Graham, and stop feeding into that pathetic adoration of youth. You were young once, you had your turn, now move on. There is something called your brain, try concentrating on nurturing that now.

She would do well to remember that Eram quod es, eris quod sum.