One day, I was reading a book about success and successful people, in which the author was exploring lives of various achievers and their path to fame. At some point, – I was on page 68 out of 205, – I realized that all the names the author mentioned so far belonged to men, no single woman made it to the book up to this point. And I stopped reading because I couldn’t relate to any of the stories in the book or apply any of the strategies from the book to myself. The book about success and successful people turned out to be not for me.
Even though the book might not be the best or the author might be biased, I still think it is representative on how much space women take in our recorded culture. And not only this. Not only is women’s presence in our recorded history insignificant, but the women’s image itself is also misrepresented. If you look at any artifact from our history where women happened to be featured – icons, paintings, recorded narratives, and so on, – you will realize that the majority of them have been created by men. Being presented only as seen through men’s eyes, women’s social portrayal inevitably becomes skewed and women’s behavior and motivations, needs and desires, personality and sexuality look unavoidably biased, one-sided, and on many instances unrealistic. And we still live by these canons.
The idea of this blog first came to me when I, years ago, was searching for a female role model I personally could relate to. But I couldn’t find any. All women I read about were ‘too something’ – too confident, too strong-willed, too extravagant, too wealthy, too sexy, too well connected, etc. I was not ‘too anything’, I was just me. Later I realized that it was a common problem – many other women, particularly younger ones, were also searching and also in vain.
This blog is my attempt to fill the gap and to create a new social image of women, an image that is more realistic, freed from false stereotypes and imposed unproductive and restrictive behaviors, and in general better adjusted to the new social reality. I will be doing it by:
- Collecting and sharing stories of everyday women, women from “the crowd” who have achieved success by their own definition and on their own terms, to help other women find their role models and stories they can relate to and learn from.
- Fighting existing stereotypes and prejudice by picturing diversity of women in the world because the more diverse we look, the less meaningful any particular stereotype becomes.
- Fighting misrepresentation of women by sharing and discussing various research findings and statistical evidences that show a more realistic picture of who we are, human beings, both men and women.
My intention is to keep this blog positive, respectful, informative and inspiring. I want my readers, both men and women, to come to this blog for ideas, stories, and advice and support if they are fighting the battle of gender inequality on their own. Change is hard and it’s even harder when you are alone. But I don’t have to be alone! I’m inviting all of you, women and men alike, to contribute to building a new social image of women by sharing your stories and your thoughts.
About me. I grew up with an older brother who was my hero, whom I followed everywhere, and whom I wanted to be like in every possible way. We were so inseparable that at the age of three, as my parents realized to their surprise, I didn’t even know that I had a name of my own. As a little girl, I didn’t see any difference between my brother and myself. But the reality constantly challenged my belief forcing my brother and myself to indeed grow different: we had to wear different clothes and play with different toys, – cars for him and dolls for me while we wanted to have two dolls or two cars to play together; we had to behave differently – I was encouraged to be modest and compliant while my brother was rewarded for being assertive and initiative; we were assigned different tasks around the house while we wanted to do everything together. And I constantly asked “Why?”. This and many other “Why?”s hurt me as a girl and pushed me away from my brother. Being close at birth and by birth, we eventually became strangers separated and placed by culture into two opposing camps.
Since then I learned my behavior and went on with my life. But the sense of harmony and unity my brother and I experienced in that pre-gendered world of our early childhood has stayed. I do believe that men and women are more similar than different and that we don’t have to be strangers. Artificial barriers, imposed behaviors, and unrealistic images of both genders create unnecessary and unproductive conflicts in our lives. Now it’s time to review and reconstruct social images of men and women and that is what I am ambitiously set on doing with my blog.
Welcome to the Female Citizens of the World! Be part of it.
Yours,
Elena Bakhtina
