Do You Think There Is Any Meaningful Difference In How Self-improvement Is Sold Towards Men And Women?

Do you think there is any meaningful difference in how self-improvement is sold towards men and women?

Self-improvement for women typically means being available to men and practicing artificial femininity.

When a girl lets go of her "tomboy" personality, it's considered self-improvement. In movies, the nerdy or tomboyish girl always transforms into a generic feminine and "well-mannered" (passive) girl who surprises everyone at prom and finally gets the attention of the boys who don't even recognize her. Cinderella. It's sold as self-improvement and maturity. Any of us former "tomboy" girls can attest that these stories are not entirely fictional.

When a lone woman marries and has a child, it's considered self-improvement too. A doctor recently told me, "Don't you want to make something of your life, to have a husband and make a child?" To her, as long as I have not done those two things (give myself up to the patriarchy, essentially), I have not done anything of value. Needless to say, I was incredibly offended. My point is, if I came back to her, pregnant from a boyfriend, she would consider this self-improvement.

When a woman stops crying about her trauma, when she gets up from the dirt and smiles through the pain, it's considered self-improvement. Martyrdom is sold as self-improvement to women.

Self-care is taking a bubble bath, getting your nails done, putting on a new dress, applying some lotion, and journaling. If you're not engaging in artificial femininity, you're an unfeminine slob who doesn't care about herself.

Self-love and self-confidence are expressed through our willingness to wear revealing clothes, post bikini pictures on social medias and engage in one night stands. Otherwise, you're clearly lacking in self-esteem, or you're a prude.

When I was 19, I got really sick and spent the night vomiting. I had an appointment with a social worker the next day. Obviously, I looked like crap. She said I looked like I had given up on life and had no motivation. When I saw her again, I was deep in the pit of suicidal depression and had no self-esteem, which is why I put on a lot of make-up and spent time on my hair, etc. This time, she very cheerfully said, "I can tell that you're doing better and have regained your motivation. Well done, keep it up!"

A woman's self-improvement is in showing that she cares about others more than herself. Self-care and self-love are about pleasing others. The irony.

Still when I was 19, I participated in a workshop for unemployed women, proposed by the local job centre. The first day, they taught us about fashion and which colour suited our skin best, making us stand in front of a mirror one by one. They said that, at the end of the week, we'd get a free haircut, which let us know that the entire week was going to be some relooking experiment. Now I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that the workshop for unemployed men wasn't about posing in front of a mirror and discussing fashion advice. It was supposed to last a week, but I never went back. Self-improvement was, once again, artificial femininity.

I don't know what's promoted as self-improvement to men, but I know it's not artificial femininity, martyrdom and impregnation. So yes, I can guess it's pretty different.

some of you have ‘identities’ that deserve to be invalidated. some of them are unhealthy, actively hurt disenfranchised groups, or have no basis in material reality. the overbearing identity politics that exists on the internet, this whole postmodernist idea of ‘I say it so I am!’ is completely irrelevant when we’re considering actual oppressions within societies/cultures. it is meaningless.

I saw a post once on here saying ‘some of you deserve to feel less valid’ and I have never seen anything truer. some of you need to get your self-indulgent heads out of your asses too and consider that the entire world doesn’t need to alter itself due to ~your feelings~ and if you think it does, maybe your feelings/identity/whatever are the problem here.

Nothing romantic about marriage.

I want women to challenge the messages we internalise about how it’s so virtuous for us to put ourselves last, to sacrifice our own needs for the good of others. I want to see an end to the ideal of the self-sacrificing mother, who exists to serve her husband and children. Women deserve to put our own needs first and live full and happy lives on our own terms.

that alternative ending where the tb stayed on the space station and became a researcher. how much angst do you think it can contain

“what oppression do women face? what rights don’t they already have?” let me explain something very simple to you. having laws that permit women to have jobs, divorce men, abort, or kill in self-defense is literally 25% of the battle. why? because of infrastructure and societal bias.

for example, it is technically illegal to rape (legislation) yet few rapists are ever convicted and even if they are, their sentences never match the crime. why? for one, it’s hard for girls and women of challenging socioeconomic backgrounds to access services or resources like rape kits or information on how to seek legal assistance; and in the course of this, the police men are likely to sexually abuse them as well, resulting in more trauma and reducing their chances at seeking justice (infrastructure). even if a woman were to get a job (and the law doesn’t allow discrimination), if the social bias is that she can’t perform well, she is still less likely to be hired. if she is hired, she is more likely to be underpaid (read up on the velvet or pink ghetto).

government (legislation and judiciary) are reflective of social consciousness. they may agree with the rights of women (sometimes) on paper, but whether or not they are meaningfully enforced is completely up to those with the most socioeconomic power, which, for now, is largely still men (in that men maintain most of the wealth, property, and high opinion in a populace, they also control most popular metanarratives via religion, education, pornography and entertainment which means they largely control public perception). because men in patriarchal society keep their resources to themselves and seek to elevate only themselves. racism can be illegal, and still rampant, in a country. so it is with misogyny and homophobia.

if men hate women in a system that has long been organized to benefit them, a few legislative changes won’t automatically change that system. it has to be altered structurally and socially as well.

and that takes a whole lot more fighting