She’s Probably Not Doing That *AT* You

Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum for 7 Quick Takes.

1

If you somehow haven’t heard by now, the third royal baby was born! Yea babies! We got our first picture of Kate stepping out of the hospital with babe in arms.

And the internet went “OMG SHE’S WEARING HEELS?!” Cue memes about how real women postpartum. You know, not LIKE THAT.

Lots of people shared it. They probably felt good about themselves, they represent “real women”.

This seems amazingly hypocritical.

The same people who talk about how we need to be open to others, and everyone needs to do what works for them (“Do what you gotta do.”), made a meme to make fun of a woman doing what she has to do!

So empowering y’all.

2

“We’re not being mean, we’re just saying our experience wasn’t like that.”

Ok.

What about women who DO have experiences like that?

3

“We just want to point out that women shouldn’t hold themselves up to unreasonable expectations.”

Who gets to decide what is reasonable? Why can women not be trusted to discern a reasonable that might be different from your own? Is anyone seriously watching what a royal does and think “oh man, I wish I could be doing that too!” without also realizing the drastic difference between her day to day and that of a British royal?

4

The message seems to come down to “don’t let us know if you are doing well”.

Let’s say 90% of your day was struggle. The baby was colicky, plans fell through, you’re achy, everyone in whining. But you managed to eat a good meal and get dressed today. Why should the focus go to primarily the struggle and not the success? Don’t we tell women to focus on the positive?
For that matter, why does Kate not count as a success when she used the help and resources she has? Last I checked we wanted to encourage women to use their resources.

5

It gets creepy.

You know what posts do the best on social media? The ones about what is going wrong in my life. The ones about darkness. The ones that show me at my worst.

At some point it feels like people are scrolling through looking for someone doing worse than themselves so they can feel better about their own lives.

Even if that works for you, it’s a little messed up to need someone else to be doing badly so you can feel better.

6

I don’t think the problem is unrealistic expectations anymore. I think we have a problem, especially among women, with needing to be the same. Policing that sameness and displacing anyone different into a box of “other”. 

I’m one of those “others” most of the time. I don’t experience many things in what seems to be the manner of the majority. 

I don’t get morning sickness, I do well under pressure, I like to have a tidy home (or at least 20 minutes from clean) most of the time. I am almost always on time or early, and it does not make sense to my brain that people might not mean what they say.

7

I’m not unobservant. I notice that my being like this can make people uncomfortable. There are a lot of assumptions about what I “must think” without anyone taking the time to ask me.

I don’t care if your house is messy, I truly didn’t notice. It’s not my stuff - it doesn’t bother me.

I can empathize with you when you have hard pregnancies even if I haven’t experienced that.

I understand that my experience might not be everyone’s experience.

But I want to be allowed the social space to share my good!

Is not the point of having community not to glorify the good and support each other? I think we can do that without putting other women into a box marked “not one of us”.