Women (my favourite topic?)

I've been reading a book. I think it's a good book, and it's certainly a book full of meaning and depth and layers. In a book, I can think of nothing better than layers. Secrets. Things you kind of suspect from the beginning, but don't find out fully until later on.

I like books like that. I also like books that are set in my native Southland, so this book is a winner on 2 fronts. Perhaps what I like most, this book is about female friendship, of which there is far too little in the world.

I haven't had that many good female friends in my life. Women are catty, and bitchy (why do those two terms, about cats and dogs respectively, get used negatively only in reference to women? I have called a man a bitch before, but when a man is called 'Dawg,' or referred to as a 'cat'--which was slang long before my time, but I like movies from the 50s--it's a term of affection or respect, even envy. Why is it that the feminine form of a thing is always meant to imply the bad side of that thing?).

That was such a digression I'm starting a new paragraph. Women, however much issue I take with the terms themselves, are catty and bitchy creatures. Not because we're built that way, necessarily, but because society allows and expects us to be weak, ineffectual, whining little animals, who have to learn to dissemble and divert and misdirect at an early age. I have learned the harsh truth since leaving my home--women are bitches. Not all women, certainly, and maybe not even most; but many. Enough that it spoils things for the rest of us.

This whole topic reminds me of a paper I wrote in high school. It was basically about men marginalizing us, keeping us locked away, keeping us down, etc. It was a rather well-written piece, for a high school senior taking a university freshman course, and in the spirit of consistency (and because I didn't have time to change it) I kept my original title and thesis and turned out an essay which painted men as the single most detrimental thing a modern woman will ever experience. I defended my point very well, I managed to avoid most of my usual grammatical mistakes, and I got a shiny happy A (maybe an A+) on that particular work of genius.

However, in the course of my research into how society, the media, and most of all men keep women in their degraded and degrading places, I came to a startling conclusion. I discovered, by analyzing and evaluating everything I read, that the reason women are less likely to achieve their utmost, is usually other women. So my amateur, childish research indicated; and so I have found, now that I'm out in the world myself.

For every fine, generous, beautiful, unique, simply lovely woman out there, there are at least 5 jealous cats waiting to take her down a peg. Just waiting for the right time to knock her back into her place. Just waiting to steal her boyfriend, her promotion, and her group of friends, and then probably key her car on their way out the door.

It doesn't have to be like this, though. I check myself continually, and so should other women (although maybe this is part of the problem--women want to boss other people into being 'better', whereas men have a more live-and-let-live approach).......

Wow. I wrote this a while back, and I'm going to publish it now, because, well, I wrote it. But it's a real shame I've started to feel that way--I didn't, growing up. Of course, I'm a long way from home... maybe people are nicer, where I'm from.

I hope people are nicer somewhere.