Living in liberal city, in a liberal(ish) country, Wellington girls often talk about gender imbalance when we see it. Yet still, many of us have internalised an array of coded, gendered values that permeate our day-to-day behaviour and attitudes. We are a generation of girls who have found ourselves at a crossroad in the midst of gender progression, characterised by our tendency to say that ‘sorry’ for asking relevant questions, yet set against our increasing participation in a culture of “self-love”. So I ask, why do we still continue to erase our own voices? Are we a generation of shrinking women?
And when I say ‘shrinking women’, I don’t mean resizing women (well, I sort of do, but not in ‘The Incredible Shrinking Woman’ way you’re thinking). I’m talking about the insistent shrinking of our self-esteem. Take me, for example, I over-analyse every conversation, I apologise for things that are out of my control, and I ration my food portions in front of people, unless I can make a joke about how ‘vulgar’ I am for eating so much. My problem was that these issues got shoved under the umbrella of my long-time beau, “anxiety”. And because of that, I thought I was suffering alone.
That is, until my friend told me she was exactly the same. From that point, I began to realise how many women in my life are “anxious” in the same way as me. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, women have a consistently higher percentage of lifetime anxiety disorders than men, at all ages (33.3% of women vs. 22.0% of men,). On top of that, women with anxiety disorders are far more likely to develop bulimia nervosa, major depressive disorder, agoraphobia, panic disorder, specific phobias, social anxiety disorders among other illnesses.
Are we really just 11.3% more anxious because of … uncontrollable variables? What they’re not telling you is, that for the 11.3% of us affected, our anxiety is the result of the control variables of the patriarchy. Think about all the male friends you have, worrying about apologising all the time. Not many, right? Think about all those quirky BuzzFeed-esque videos you’ve found yourself watching at 1am in a dark youtube spiral, titled “when you’re a girl who can’t stop saying sorry”. It’s a gendered thing.
Apologising too much, over-analysing conversations, muting your opinions, refusing or ignoring compliments, denying temptations, rationing food in front of people, discrediting your own opinion to others; It’s in these ways that women tend to shrink themselves. And if you thought these behaviours were personal, you’re mistaken. They are entirely commonplace.
This phenomenon of ‘shrinking women’ was coined by Lily Myers in her slam poem of the same name. In it, she talks about the way women “make space for the entrance of men into their lives not knowing how to fill it back up once they leave.” The root of which comes from body image and female eating habits.
Ella, a 16 year old Wellington Girls student, says that since she was young, her weight has always been a pressing concern from her family. “There’s a theme of diabetes and heart disease in my family… you know, [her family says] “you’ve gotta watch out for this, oh Ella, you’re putting on a little bit of weight, should avoid this.” It did then impact on how I perceived myself. Looking at magazine advertisements – “lose weight, look like this person on the cover with a six pack, be thinner” – that’s what I started to believe was ‘healthy’ and that’s what I aimed to reach.”
Though not every girl has a bad relationship with food or her body, we’ve all had countless punches thrown at us to “be thinner” or “be smaller,” in whatever form they may occur in. That feeling of ‘shrinking’ extends further than its physical manifestation. We believe that we aren’t proper women until we fit into this slim categorisation of womanhood, whether it’s a small body or a small presence.
Even though Ella goes to a same sex school, she still feels an instinct to recede into herself in the classroom. “When I’m in class, I don’t raise my voice, I don’t raise my hand, I never really put my ideas out there, I’m very controlled and I do shrink my presence to this tight little ball where no one will notice me.” When she has male teachers, Ella feels even more inclined to do so. “The fact that my teacher is a man intimidates me a little bit. Not because I feel threatened, but that I’m aware of what he stands for. He, to me, stands for the opposite sex within my school… If my [female teacher’s] mean, she’s mean. With my male science teacher, when he critiques my work, it’s suddenly like, “shit Ella, you’ve really messed up this time.””
Lily Myers describes this as the “lessons from my mother I took in creating space around myself. As she shrinks the space around her seems increasingly vast…She waxes while my father wanes.” Like Ella says, there’s a desire to make ourselves smaller and our surrounding space proportionately bigger when men are present. Ella isn’t attracted to her teacher, but she still wants to present the most ‘feminine’ version of herself when she’s around him.
At our worst moments of shrinking, we’re often not even around men. It’s not so much to do with male presence, as it is to do with performing gender norms. Both women and men are inherent within the patriarchal system which affirms and maintains gender binary roles. Therefore, women will still perform their femininity, and still continue to “shrink” themselves even when men aren’t around.
So, if you are the BuzzFeed cliche girl-who-apologises-all-the-time, it’s probably a side effect of your shrinking. Ella says that “there’ll be times where I’ll take the last spot on the treadmill, or I’ll take the last mint slice and I’ll have to apologise for that. I don’t really have to, there’s no need, but some part of me wants to. It’s not just about you eating the cookie. It’s this idea that that could have been someone else’s cookie. And you took it, and you should apologise.” The thing is, you have every right to take to the cookie or the treadmill. And if you’re saying sorry because you don’t feel entitled to the same privileges as everyone else, that’s internalised sexism at play.
Now, back to my original question: Are we a generation of shrinking women? Like any generation, our lineage is comprised of mothers before us. I spoke to my other friend, Eden, a 16 year-old Wellington Girls student, who noticed that there’s a history of women shrinking themselves in her family; “My parents got married very young and my mother, who was just as smart and intelligent, set aside her goals and aspirations to support my Dad and his journey to becoming a journalist. It’s just so hard because I hate seeing her pushed to the side.” This mentality has always been a part of Eden’s household, as her family values “go back to my Nana and my Nana’s mother as well.” In Myers poem, she says that watching her mother’s “struggle, I either mimic or hate her, and I don’t want to do either”. Like Myers says, we don’t mean to replicate our mothers “but spend enough time sitting across from someone and you pick up their habits.” Eden doesn’t think she could ever let herself shrink at the hands of others, because she has the knowledge to stand up for herself. But she still recognises that she’s just as prone to shrinking herself as anybody else. Of course, that’s not the fault of Eden or her mother or her Nana or her Nana’s mother or anyone else from her family tree. Shrinking women aren’t weak women.
When Eden spoke to me about her mother, she told me that “she didn’t deserve to have her dreams put aside, but she did it for someone she loved. The sacrifices she’s made are way more crucial to me as a person and to my life. That she put aside something for someone.” Self-sacrifice might be a good thing, but it has negative repercussions for femininity. We’re taught to be self-sacrificial, compromising, gentle, empathetic, compassionate, tolerant, deferential and docile. Alone, these character traits may be honourable but when wrapped up in a package of feminine virtue, they can be soul-destroying. These building blocks of womanhood are based on the submission of women to their male counterparts. We might be the most educated generation of feminist women to date, but this internalised shrinking still stems from a limited understanding of what womanhood is.
And that’s crap. We aren’t secondary. We don’t exist to service others. We are entities on and of our own. It’s incredibly difficult to recognise how we shrink ourselves because part of the problem is how ingrained this behaviour is. But, small steps are important. Try to say sorry less. Don’t filter your opinions. Your thoughts are just important as the boy with Monster stickers on his computer, who just put up his hand (and probably a lot more weighty, too).
Ultimately, yes, we are a generation of shrinking women. But we’re also a generation of critical, politically involved, self-loving teenagers who are capable of making change. So, don’t watch yourself shrink. Grow, emit and inhabit your space, because you’re ideas are valid.
By Ruby Robinson-Shaw
Images attached to this article
