What Women Really Want
Women are told by society that there are many things that will give them pleasure. Things like having the perfect home, perfect body, and perfect clothes are just some of them. Society has dictated these things to women as being socially acceptable. Women are to feel guilty of the aforementioned pleasures if they do not live up to them completely. It is predetermined for women in our society to strive for perfection when it comes to appearance, emotions and domestication. As mentioned in the article “Ideal Homes”, home dÃ?©cor magazines, “encourage a narcissistic identification between women and their style”. Meaning women must strive to achieve or copy someone else’s style so that they will then adapt it as their style; thus meaning that they will then be desirable to others. These homes magazines can make women feel guilty because it makes them feel as if their home is never good enough. The magazines suggest that there home is mediocre and that women should take tips from their magazine in order to make their domestic environment more acceptable. Guilt is also imposed upon women via food. Food is advertised in women’s magazines as tempting. However, the next page over will talk about diet fads. This is implying that the food is tempting and is seen as a guilty pleasure rather than as a regular pleasure. It is guilty because the feminine ideal is to be and remain thin, thus imposing guilt upon the reader for wanting something that is displayed so gloriously.
Desires that supposedly make women happy tend to impose traditional female stereotypes. As stated in “Let’s Have a Meal Together”, the concept of meal presentation and preparationâÂ?¦..”disguises the fact that women’s subordination is expressed in the way we eat”. This is evident in the preparation of the meal. The woman is the one who shops for the food, cooks the meal, and cleans up afterwards. This puts the woman in the submissive and subordinate role. It is made extremely evident even more so when, for example, the men are served first or when the “man” is in charge of carving the turkey. This puts women back in subordination mode, socially. Another desire that women might have is photographs, or, documentation of life and family. It is women, not men, who cherish and keep up with photographs of family, trips, etc. As mentioned in “The Mirror with a Memory”, “Photographic ideologies convince us that we can be both self and other. We can see ourselves how others see us”. Because women see themselves in photos from an onlookers perspective, women tend to throw away pictures of themselves, because of the fact that they feel not pretty enough or thin enough or happy enough in the photos. This plays directly into the feminine ideal that women are constantly trying to please others via appearance. They are never happy with themselves.
Women feel anxious when people watch or look at them. This stems from the fact that when people are looking at a woman, they are analyzing her desires and pleasures. By this being done, this makes a woman second guess herself. It makes her feel unsure of her desires or pleasures. She might wonder, “Am I doing this for the right reasons” or “Do I really enjoy this, is this socially acceptable”? The biggest question a woman will ask herself is “How is this action making me appear to others”? That question plays right back into the cycle of women feeling anxious when people look at them. If an action or a desire makes her seem normal or acceptable to others, than that specific action is OK. And when a woman knows someone is viewing her positively, this brings her pleasure. Therefore, she will benefit from pleasure knowing that she has been “accepted”. In “Men’s Bodies”, “Sexual and social meanings are imposed on women’s bodies, not on men’s”. In fashion magazines, the woman is placed at a certain angle so that she is exposing enough of her body and her face might suggest desire or seduction. This shows that, “a body defined is a body controlled”(Mens Bodies 229). Men’s bodies are not defined by 3 hours worth of make up, lighting, and push up bras. Men have the power to define, not to be defined. Thus men are exempt from the intense scrutiny that women are exposed to. When men are exposed to, for example, male pinups, they get uncomfortable because they do not want to look at their own body type and judge it. Therefore, it is evident that men do not like to be looked at in the same way that women are looked at.
This collection of essays mirrors points made by Mary Pipher in her book “Reviving Ophelia”. The author of these essays and Pipher both make the point that women and girls split their selves. They succumb to the pressure of what others want, ie a domestic woman or a “pretty” woman. On the other hand, they can stay true to themselves but harbor guilt for not becoming what others want them to be. Another point is that guilt is prevalent no matter what decision is made; staying true to ones true self or conforming your self to what others what. Either way, guilt is there. You feel guilty for not giving in and pleasing your peers, or you feel guilty for sacrificing your own happiness. Another point made by both authors is that a female is constantly searching for social acceptability. This is done by picking and choosing desires and pleasures. They must be chosen because the women will be judged on her pleasures and dersires, as aforementioned.
What do women really want? Women want perfection. They want to fulfill all aspects of ideals. They want the perfect house, the perfect body, the perfect clothes, etc. This is something that is socially engrained into woman’s heads and dates back hundreds of years ago when women were indefinitely the inferiors of men. Women must live up to these perfect models on the covers of magazines and the perfect mother that cooks a hearty meal every night for her family. Society has implicated these things over the years. The most responsible vehicle for this is the media. TV and magazines show these “perfect” women such as June Cleaver, Cindy Crawford, etc. These women that we are supposed to live up to are not real women. They are airbrushed, digitally re mastered versions of women. This is why after all the clothes bought, make up used, and meals cooked, women are still unhappy. The media has given us irrational and false beings to live up to. In reality, no one can ever be perfect, ever. Women are not taught this socially so they are in a cycle of unhappiness and low confidence. What women personally want for themselves is something only they can define through their own pleasures and desires. Being happy with ones core self is the first step to achieving and maintaining happiness.
