2009 September |

September 25, 2009

Brains v. Boobs

Filed under: Body Image, Feminism — NWHN @ 9:16 am

In my “all girl” family (I have only sisters), prejudices against women do not really exist. My parents have always required us to obtain good marks at school and have always considered that we could indeed be both pretty and intelligent. I thought that it was like this for pretty much everyone with a similar background. That was until I started to make my own way in the world and started to work during my summer holidays.

I used to be a waitress at a golf restaurant in France. One time I finished work and was hanging around reading a book while waiting for my parents to pick me up. I decided to say hello to a friend of my parents who was chatting with a 60 years old man. I still had my book in my hands and the man said to me, “Ha, you have a book, is it to look intellectual?” I was astonished. Just because I was wearing a skirt and have lovely boobs, he couldn’t believe I was reading a book and not only because I liked to read but also because, yes, I was intellectual.

Unfortunately for him I had just read a book by a famous French feminist, Gisele Halimi, a few days prior and was really angry about any kind of male chauvinism. I let him know that I got really good marks on my final high school exam and was about to enter the best political sciences school in France so I was definitely what one could call an intellectual. He mumbled a few words telling me that good marks on the final high school exam did not really mean something nowadays. But my mother, who had just arrived, cut the conversation short telling him that I had always received good marks and worked hard and that they were really proud of me.

This experience really made me think about how feminism is still important nowadays. Discrimination is still prevalent against women and one of the most common prejudices is believing that boobs equals unintelligence.

Women, for the same job and an equal level of competence, are still paid less than men.
Even if women get better marks at university, it still doesn’t mean they get the best jobs. According to my research, in 2009 only 12 Fortune 500 companies and 25 Fortune 1000 companies have women CEOs or presidents.¹
And if a woman succeeds she has to face lots of criticism, either people will denounce her “inappropriate” lack of feminism, say she is acting like a man and that she is a merciless dictator, or they say her looks got her where she is, and that she is not legitimate.

What does this mean? That women are completely dull after we leave college? That we should not dress the way we want? That if we succeed it’s because we are heartless evil creatures?

Of course not!

What it means is that we live in a chauvinistic society that continues the domination of women. That’s why being silly is often associated with women rather than men and successful women are often criticized. From my point of view, this is the old adage at play that women should be the pretty caregivers of the children and men should be the intelligent breadwinners of the household.

Gender stereotyping is still prevalent with children. Little girls are complimented with “look how pretty you are,” much more often than “what a smart little girl” while boys are told how clever or big they are. I have been asked if I obtained such good grades at school because of my charm. Although the question was not meant to be an insult, I was really hurt. After all the hours I spent working hard so I could study in the university of my choosing, how could someone just assume that I passed my exams because of the way I look? Fortunately, most of the exams I passed were written ones so no one could really argue that I did not have the aptitude.

Sarah Gondy

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