Читать книгу What Makes Us Girls - Brittany Pettibone - Страница 6

If you thought to yourself, that girl is smarter than me, or if somebody else said to you, “that girl is smarter than you,” which remark would hurt you more? Most girls, myself included, would choose the second remark. The reason for this is because the comparison is not a personal conclusion, one that can be overcome through hard work or validation. It’s an external perspective, oftentimes irreversible, and completely outside our control.

During my childhood, people often negatively compared me to my sisters. I was told my sisters were more beautiful than me, that they had a better sense of style, and that they had more talent when it came to singing, drawing and writing, and so on. When I joined political YouTube, the comparisons kicked into overdrive. Thousands of people were regularly commenting on my videos, and among these comments, negative comparisons always popped up. Your twin sister is much more beautiful and feminine than you, some would write. Others compared me to fellow female political YouTubers, saying that they were prettier and more intelligent.

Obviously, it’s natural for such comparisons to hurt. But there is a route of combat, and it starts with examining the person who made the hurtful comparison. Do we know the person? Or are they just some random stranger who we’ve never met? If this is the case, it’s natural to feel hurt, but ultimately, it would be silly to allow a stranger’s opinion to affect our overall view of ourselves. The only opinions that should carry weight are the opinions of those we love, look up to and respect.

So, if at any point, someone who we love, look up to and respect makes a negative comparison of us, the feeling of inadequacy is completely understandable.

Of all the times I’ve been compared to other girls, the situation I recall hurting me the most was when a couple of male friends compared me to another girl. Of course, I had no intimate or familial attachment to the young men—we were simply political acquaintances—but the comparison still hurt. We were all packed into the car, heading home from a political protest which, at several points, had escalated into violence.

“Wow, Anna’s amazing,” the driver, a young man named Victor, commented. “Seriously, she’s like the sweetest girl ever.”

“Who’s Anna?” I asked, only half-paying attention. Sitting in the passenger seat, my head slouched against the window, I was fighting off sleep. Odors of sweat and pepper spray saturated my clothing. My energy was depleted, far past my point of tolerance, and I wanted nothing more than to collapse into my bed. The back-to-back protests, rallies and speeches were beginning to take a toll. I questioned whether I was cut out for political activism, mainly because I often felt too weak to go on. My sole motivation for persevering stemmed from an ardent belief in our cause. I couldn’t ignore the dire state of the West, no matter how much I wanted to, no matter how high the personal cost: my life ambitions, my security and privacy, my livelihood, my reputation, and more.

The second young man, Andrew, who was sitting in the back seat, answered, “How do you not remember Anna, Britt? She made us all dinner.”

“Oh—of course. Sorry, I forgot.”

I smiled sheepishly, feeling that I’d been rude. I’d met over a hundred people that day, and as a result, didn’t remember most names. Eventually, an image of Anna returned to my mind: layered brown hair, a caring smile and a slender frame wrapped in a blue trench coat that was frayed at the wrists. I recalled having spoken to her for a few minutes, recalling specifically that my impression of her had been nothing short of positive.

“It was great of her to cook for us,” Victor went on. “She even made us sandwiches for the drive home.” He motioned to three neatly-wrapped sandwiches in the back seat.

Andrew opened one of the sandwiches and took a bite. “What girl still cooks these days?” he marveled. “If Anna didn’t already have a guy, I’d call her.”

“Lots of girls can cook.” I laughed. “I’m not so bad.”

“Hey, it’s okay, Britt,” Victor said. “Nobody in the movement expects that of you. We know you’re not that kind of girl.”

I hesitated. “Not what kind of girl?”

“You know…the maternal, caring type.”

I stopped laughing as a sharp pang struck my chest.

Both Victor and Andrew noted my reaction and their shoulders stiffened, as if realizing they’d said something hurtful.

“We don’t mean anything bad by it,” Andrew assured. “We just meant that you’re sort of different.”

“You might not be as maternal as Anna,” Victor added, “but Anna’s not political and she could never do what you do. Most girls couldn’t.”

I smiled and shrugged off the conversation, passing the remainder of the trip in silence. I wasn’t comforted by their words, mainly because they were wrong. I couldcook. I’d learned from one of the best cooks in the world: my mother. The reason I hadn’t helped Anna make dinner was because, after spending the entire day in a riot, I was tired and distracted. Not to mention, my friends hadn’t known me long. We’d never been in a situation where I could cook for them. Plus, I would have preferred to be in the kitchen cooking rather than risking my life to give a speech or film a YouTube video.

Although the young men’s comparison struck a nerve in my feminine pride, for as long as I knew them, they never compared me again—at least not to my face. In this respect, communicating to our friends and loved ones how we feel is imperative. Without communication, the channel to understanding the world around us is cut. We might even end up developing a false sense of how our loved ones perceive us, which could destroy our relationships irreparably.

On the other hand, if the negative comparison was intentional and the person, even though they love us, made the comparison deliberately to hurt us because they were angry, we simply have to come to terms with the fact that people say harsh words out of anger all the time—and more often than not, they don’t truly mean what they’re saying in regards to insulting us. Many of us likely already understand this because we’re guilty of using harsh words in moments of anger ourselves. It might take some time, but if the person loves us, eventually they’ll apologize.