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"I Enjoy Being a Girl" — Linda Low, Flower Drum Song, 1958, Rogers & Hammerstein
To me, this song has always represented the nadir of the entertainment industry's presentation of women's value, motives and desires. Linda Low enjoys being a girl when she can wear makeup and frilly clothes, and celebrates how the curves of her body attract men, using that to manipulate them and get what she wants from them. Her total focus and only goal in life is to get married, it hardly matters to whom. If one examines TV characters from that decade, this is typical of how women were presented and portrayed.
Our society has seen three major women's movements. I want to comment primarily on the second. The first one started in the mid-1800s, which culminated in women winning the right to vote in 1920, and the second started in the 1960s which had more-difficult-to-measure goals about the quality of women's lives. (It has always fascinated me that both of these movements followed on movements related to race — abolition in the 19th century and the civil rights movement in the 20th century — when women involved in these movements recognized their own disenfranchisement and lack of social and political power.) Both of these movements have resulted in significant improvements in the lives of women in this country. When considering this, we may be tempted to think of sociological indicators, such as changes in legal standing or economic well-being, but I would like to focus on a more personal, psychological impact.
I did not enjoy being a girl. When I was growing up, that is. As an adult, I have had to "work through this issue," as we say in the trade, doing the hard emotional/psychological work of understanding why I felt this way, from where this feeling about myself came, and changing to a healthier self-concept. At one point, I asked my therapist how common this is among women. Her response was, "you're the researcher; do the research!" I did not do a formal, NIH-funded, multi-million dollar research project. But I did do a little internet-based study.
I had access to two email listservs focused on evangelical women (this was not a "representative sample" but a sample of convenience, with all the limitations that implies). I sent them an email questionnaire in which I asked them about whether they enjoyed being a girl (or not), and why. I also asked some other questions like birth year, if they had brothers or sisters, and so on.
I found that a significant percentage of evangelical women, like me, did not enjoy being a girl. But there was an interesting phenomenon in the data. Things like having brothers or sisters and such did not affect how likely the evangelical women were to report not liking being a girl. The year 1960, however, seemed to be an important year. Among evangelical women born before then, who would have been taught to be like Linda Low, over two-thirds of the women did not enjoy being girls. The reasons they gave tended to be about the restrictions they felt: things they could not do, games they could not play, stuff they could not have because they were girls and not boys.
Evangelical women born after 1960 were much less likely to say they did not enjoy being girls: less than half responded this way. They reported feeling no such limitations on what they could do or aspire to do or be.
I was born before 1960 and I saw myself reflected in these women's answers. That was pretty heady, and healing, stuff. There are things to criticize about the women's movement of the '60s, including some excesses. But I cannot criticize the empowering effect on young girls and their aspirations of being told "I am woman, hear me roar ... I am strong ... I can do anything," to a quote different old song by Helen Reddy. To my mind, that was the power and success of the modern women's movement. Women discovered that it is a good thing to be a woman. We could enjoy being girls.
Well, I have done the hard work. I have made peace with my gender. Sometimes, I even enjoy being a woman. I know that being a woman does not mean I cannot do this or that. Today, we are in a very different context.
As a therapist and from personal experience, I believe it is important to look below the surface of any psychologically distressing situation. First, understand why. Then, decide what to do about it. I once told a couple I was working with that I would not (of course) make a decision for them. But I would work with them to help them make decisions from the healthiest position possible. Wouldn’t this apply to anyone with whom we work? First, understand why. Then, decide what to do about it.
