Bitch Ph.D. had a fascinating thread about shame last week.
what things are Other People telling us to be ashamed of?
folks wrote about their abortions, their class conflicts, their secret envies, their bad habits, secret dreams, their lack of ambition, their overweening ambition. it was like eavesdropping on confessions.
so here's mine, in all their tawdry, shallowness - (some) things i really feel/want yet am ashamed to feel/want on some level because i think that I Oughtn't.
i should be ashamed of...
1. wanting to be hot. like super, duper, jennifer lopez HOT. (what feminist wants to be hot? i do.)
2. not being nurturing enough toward...others. (okay, everyone.)
3. being totally indifferent toward the welfare of children - like, when people say 'think of the children' i really really don't give a shit. not in some hipster ironic way. i really don't give a shit about kids.
4. not wanting to get an affordable condo in the southside of chicago because i know i would hate every second of living down there (and not really wanting my broke down aunt to know where i live.)
5. having no debt but still not being able to pass a credit check for an apartment.
6. being hyper competitive at work and wanting to WIN all the time.
7. REALLY wanting to be hot. like, make men drop in their tracks hot. if i had a fairy godmother, i'd ask to make me hot.
8. having a cleaning lady i write instructions to in spanish.
9. obsessing over things like Real Simple, Domino, Blueprint and Lucky mags and trolling for cute clothes online. i should be ashamed i'm a capitalist piglet!
10. secretly thinking of ways to be a progressive terrorist. (really. my mind goes there. 'if it was my personal mission to rid the world of anti-choicers, racists and misogynists how would i do it? hmmm.' you think i'm kidding but i'm not.)
i should tell my life coach about this exercise.
10 comments:
#6 is me, all me, without guilt. I want to be the best!
#4: We pondered a move to Hyde Park once. Great prices! But I like my neighborhood and don't want to move there. I like to be surrounded by non-iffy neighborhoods. We also looked a beautiful duplex condo in Uptown--next door to a small CHA building with drug arrests in the police blotter. With graffiti on the private garage. And a zillion men jaywalking across Sheridan. Rudy Giuliani may be an inveterate asshole, but there's something to his jaywalking crackdown. Rampant jaywalking *is* a sign of deeper disorder. You wait for the cars to pass or you run--you don't just meander in front of cars and expect them to slow down. I didn't think I'd feel too safe walking in that bit of Uptown. And all the restaurants were crappy little cheap-ass dives! I like to walk to cute restaurants.
#5: Do you use a credit card but pay it off? Or do you avoid credit cards? Credit scores are higher if you have credit and use it responsibly than if you hyper-responsibly avoid it altogether. If you're using a debit card instead of a credit card, start using a credit card for groceries and whatnot and pay it off each month.
#10: I would like to hear your ideas.
#3 i'm a feminist and a mother, which is perhaps even rarer than a feminist who longs to be a hottie, so while i do give a shit about kids more now than before, i still find it utterly manipulative when filmmakers, politicians, and charitable orgs use images of children to plug their causes. so i understand your point entirely, even if when i first read it i had to read twice: "totally indifferent to the welfare of children." wow.
#5 i have tons of (student loan)debt but perfect credit: i'd much rather be walkin' in your shoes, sistah.
#9 hello, i love the "craigslist piglet" phrase. i just moved into a new house and managed to furnish two rooms exclusively with CL items.
orange,
re: credit. i am hyper-responsible and avoid using my ONE credit card. it's too much of a temptation! must avoid! must avoid!
re: not wanting to be a gentrifier on the southside. i have a friend (also african american) who moved to the southside from the northside and she said, after a year of living in south shore, 'black people have it rough here, man. rough. i almost regret this.'
i'm a straight up chicken shit. i do not like rough. living in south central in la is one thing; living on the southside of chicago is totally different, dude.
re: being a progressive terrorist. i've always wondered why progressives don't just take it to the next level, the way the right wing wackos do. i mean, mcveigh was totally bonkers but he sorta had a point. and the guy from harpers ferry, the hardcore abolitionist - he was progressive! (kinda)
just sayin'.
oh, and about the jaywalking=deep disorder.
driving far west on chicago, before oak park, there's tons of random jaywalking and it makes me really sort of tense. it's totally foreign to my experience. no one does that in L.A. not even in south central.
gs: children and animals. these two things get the most attention from donors and volunteers. i work for a non profit org and we didn't start getting big donations until we started plastering photos of the cute little brown girls who would benefit from a particular program all over our literature and talking about it at luncheons. totally manipulative and it totally worked.
if only we could connect low-income family needs to puppies and we'd be made in the shade.
re: credit. i just took care of my student debt and my tax debt. so i'm totally puzzled why my credit score is so low. i dream of perfect credit.
1. You're not allowed to be a hot feminist! That's MY gig! (Did you notice I didn't write about things I actually *am* ashamed of?)
2: Count your lucky stars.
3: The mark of a good person, really.
4, 5: SO BOURGIE! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!
6: I hear you.
7: You and I need therapy.
8: How dare you be able to write Spanish! (Also: BOURGIE!)
9: BOURGIE!
10: Hm, maybe you're not so bourgie after all.
damn. this was only supposed to be an exercise in faux shame? crap.
but, yes. i guess if it wasn't apparent before, it now is: ding is totally bougie.
my wanting to be a progressive terrorist must be an aberration. (and i have really good ideas, too.)
ugh. spam.
All the best commie revolutionaries were bourgie, you know. It takes a certain amount of leisure and privilege to get the education and time to think that's required to come up with revolutionary ideas.
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