Our good old patriarchal idealism’s. Seriously. It's great that in our so-called advanced society, we're still resorting to dated one-sided thinking about gender equality. In the olden days, we at least were up-front about our predjudices. Now we keep them hidden under the rug, we make shocked faces when speaking about it in public, we harbor it deeply in our hearts and sneakily.
Rather than generalizing, I will pinpoint my focus for this particular blog. My parents.
Double standards are second nature to them. It's stunning, the mastery they exemplify when saying one thing and doing another. This astounding quality presents itself most frequently in their raising of myself and my older brother. Growing up, neither of us were angels, but he messed up in far bigger manners than I did. Therefore my parents decision to love him more than me utterly makes more sense. As I would spend long days at home trying to impress my parents with my wit and my actual dedication to school and sports, my brother would drive his shitty insurances-less car over for visits and it was as though my mother would truly come to life. Springing out of her chair, she would offer to order him pizza, give him some money. I would ask myself, 'Self, didn't you just tell mother you were starving and she told you to fend for yourself? Yes, Self, that did happen. HMMM.'
This debauchery also presented itself in mine and my brothers' wishes for body modification. Like any teenagers, we both wanted tattoos and/or piercings to represent our individuality and how special we are. The difference is, at 17 my brother got a tattoo as a gift from my parents. When I was 17, my parents would not even allow me to get the impermanent hole in my nostril I so desperately wanted.
Thus this lead to my brother over the years getting more and more tattoos, and me getting my nose pierced without permission and thus getting in trouble.
As I got older, so did my friends. They began getting tattoos as well. My friend Amanda especially delved into the tattoo world, getting them frequently, big ones, expensive ones, beautiful ones. Ones she had to hide from HER parents, though she was over 18 and thus legally enabled to get the ink. When I told my mother about the tattoos and showed her pictures, she looked both shocked and disgusted, as if Amanda had cut off her own ear and had it sewn to her bicep for cosmetic purposes. “I think she has a problem, Kate.” my mom says each time Amanda gets a new one.
Fast forward, it's move in day. I'm moving into my college dorm, out of my parents home. I'm well over 18, almost nineteen. My friend Dana sits on the bed, watching my mom and I unpack, my mom is being nice to Dana about her tattoos.
“Mom, I'm going to get a tattoo.” I say.
Her eyes widen. “If you do, before you graduate college, you're not getting anything from me financially.”
I smile.
“But JD has tattoos!”
My mom is smiling, light hearted, because we are in the company of a friend. “That's different, JD is a boy. And I like Dana's tattoos, but she's not my daughter.”
I am flabbergasted. She seems very serious. Dana and I share a secretive, wide-eyed look, and the tattoo I already have on my shoulder seems to be guiltily pulsated under the Tshirt by which it is hidden.
I digress. This essay has not been very well-executed. What I'm trying to say, my point I'm trying to prove with sarcasm, is that everyone has double standards about men and women and even though as society we strive so hard to be 'equal', even little things like saying tattoos are okay on men and not women, are furthering our inequality. Either we're the same in all aspects, or we're not the same at all. So cut the bullshit. If my brother can have 8 tattoos, half of then looking hood rat prison-esque, then I can get as many as I damn well please. WORD.
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