I was 16 in the late nineties, and at uni. in the early 1990s. A tomboy as a child, I can honestly say that I never encountered any issues with feeling that I was somehow lesser. It didn't even occur to me or my female friends that we were (and of course I'm not saying there weren't times where I wasn't the subject of unwanted male aggre…
I was 16 in the late nineties, and at uni. in the early 1990s. A tomboy as a child, I can honestly say that I never encountered any issues with feeling that I was somehow lesser. It didn't even occur to me or my female friends that we were (and of course I'm not saying there weren't times where I wasn't the subject of unwanted male aggression or misogyny).
Our role models were women being themselves and doing their thing. And compared to our parents, born in the forties, we felt that earlier women's struggles had borne fruit for us. We were happy to disrupt gender roles in ways parents didn't always understand. Porn was still in the form of grubby magazines, not that of a hand-held screen used by kids. It was an exciting time to emerge into adulthood.
These notions of woman as glassy-eyed, collagen-pumped vessels put on earth for male satisfaction come from the mass pornification of society. You only have to walk past a secondary school to see how many girls now view themselves. Thick makeup. Fake eyebrows. Massive draw-on lips. Fake tans. Identikit hair. Identikit selfies. If someone had told me when I was 18 that in the future young women would actively seek to look like plastic porn stars and those who didn't would be told to have a double mastectomy and say they were men, I'd never, ever have believed them.
I was 16 in the late nineties, and at uni. in the early 1990s. A tomboy as a child, I can honestly say that I never encountered any issues with feeling that I was somehow lesser. It didn't even occur to me or my female friends that we were (and of course I'm not saying there weren't times where I wasn't the subject of unwanted male aggression or misogyny).
Our role models were women being themselves and doing their thing. And compared to our parents, born in the forties, we felt that earlier women's struggles had borne fruit for us. We were happy to disrupt gender roles in ways parents didn't always understand. Porn was still in the form of grubby magazines, not that of a hand-held screen used by kids. It was an exciting time to emerge into adulthood.
These notions of woman as glassy-eyed, collagen-pumped vessels put on earth for male satisfaction come from the mass pornification of society. You only have to walk past a secondary school to see how many girls now view themselves. Thick makeup. Fake eyebrows. Massive draw-on lips. Fake tans. Identikit hair. Identikit selfies. If someone had told me when I was 18 that in the future young women would actively seek to look like plastic porn stars and those who didn't would be told to have a double mastectomy and say they were men, I'd never, ever have believed them.