What I’m writing about today has no shortage of coverage on the internet. We know women battle with stereotypes, double standards, an unwanted male gaze, blah blah blah, every day. It’s redundant and exhausting to consume and create this message on “the struggle of being a woman” when every piece of media seems to say the same thing, and still, nothing changes. But this issue is still present, and I want to change it, so here I am. 

If you want a community of supportive women or an accurate understanding of what your peers, daughters, or girlfriends are dealing with today. This article is where you want to be. 

I can’t speak for every woman on Earth; I’d be an idiot if I tried, but I can say this: Having grown up with comments and restrictions on how much of my stomach can show, how much of my shoulder is available to the public eye, and constant uncomfortable interactions with grimy old men, plus some guys my own age, staring and commenting on how my figure or face is appealing, I’ve had to grow out of–and in some ways am still living with–an enduring belief that almost everything I do is under constant and unforgiving scrutiny by men. 

How I walk. The way my body looks, how I speak, which people I’m friends with, how I yell, laugh, and smile. What I find funny, what type of books I like, how I eat, the list never ends– and this is every time I was in public; that’s what I’d obsess over. 

If you’re thinking this sounds tiring… no shit!! I’m sick of it, and I’m fucking sick of our widespread obsession with this spectacle of the “perfect woman” that we can’t even define. Because all I know about her, is that she can never be who I am at any given moment, and I should be ashamed for it. I will never meet this idealized and fantastical image of what a perfect woman should be.

Since puberty, I’ve felt stripped of my rights to authenticity simply because I need to present myself as appealing, feminine, and easy to love– whatever that means. I cannot count how many times I’ve been unable to focus at school because my mind was a frenzy of panicked questions like if my stomach looked too large or my double chin was showing or if my “concentration face” was sexy. I mean, it’s absurd.

It wasn’t until I read Roxane Gay’s essay “Garish, Glorious, Spectacle” from her book Bad Feminist that I realized such obsessions, unfortunately, are a part of the female experience.

Gay uplifted this idea of a “Green Girl,” A modern-day female archetype that is obsessed with achieving this standard of an “ideal woman.” The Green Girl lives a performance. She nitpicks and adjusts her presentation of femininity based on what society tells her, and she ends up becoming exactly what the masses want her to be: blank and agreeable. This is common, and I can bet that everyone has come into contact with a “Green Girl” at least once. 

As women, we’re told to crave intimacy and achieve this almighty image of a perfect wife with a perfect family and a perfect body while being served this ever-changing spectacle of what that whole image means. For me, at least, it made me so paralyzed by vulnerability that I shut down whenever I was in public or around a cute guy. I ran the risk of never being truly known for who I was but who I was told to be. I was scared to be seen as ugly, big, messy, obtrusive– anything other than blank and agreeable. 

If you’re reading this as a man, and you think this sounds fake. Let me say this, and I hope it sticks…

If you say you care about women’s rights and equality, but you pick and choose which parts of that experience to accept, you don’t actually care about women’s rights. 

The best way to combat this obsession with an “ideal woman” is to realize that she doesn’t actually exist. There is no woman that you can materialize who meets all these ever-changing traits that society presses for– and if you’re thinking of Sydney Sweeney or Livvy Dunne… dude, you don’t actually know either of those women. 

Stripping our women of their right to be imperfect, messy, loud, and opinionated is, I think, the worst thing you can do for a society that women literally gave life to. We can change the standard; we just have to question the “standards” and what it means to be authentic. 

I know the phrase “easier said than done” has never been more of an understatement. Most women who resonate with the experience of the Green Girl are societally thriving with their projection of what people want them to be; it’s fucking scary to strip that image down and present yourself as who you are. But know that every life, including yours, has inherent value, and when you find a community of people who celebrate your authenticity, it will genuinely change your life. I don’t have it all figured out; I still get caught in the loop of trying to think and act the way a “Green Girl” would, but know that you don’t have to be perfect; you just have to be you. Thank you for reading.