Being a woman, however, is not all about looks (even if that’s the pervading media jingo). Men may think that women’s constant complaints about their gender pertain only to the pressure to wear lipstick and padded bras, but, in reality, it’s concerned more with behavior than beauty. Good Girls feel they must constantly impress everyone, because, beginning with Daddy, (Mommy, too, for that matter), they are taught to live in public as though they are performing. Growing up in a family conscious of society’s expectations, girls themselves are expected to always appear perfectly composed – from the crimp in their hair down to the man in their bed. They are thwarted by onlookers, constantly watched, and therefore must never stop smiling, sunning themselves and saying only what is appropriate. It is as constrictive life – one which negates the ability to sponsor adventures, wildness and a freewheeling spirit – and for this lack of fun, good girls supplement secrets.
A female friend of mine, exquisitely good-looking, consistently well-dressed, the ultimate vision of vivid womanhood, finds great misery in her feminine role. “I feel that I can’t be myself around anyone,” she says. “All I want is to be able to act as freely as my boyfriend, but if I did, I’d be called crazy, I’d be called a slut. I’m not a slut just because I want to say something snide or sarcastic, just because I want to sleep with someone I’m not dating. Am I?”
Unfortunately, in the public eye, she is; because the public eye involved in her private life is one shaped by the present media, the clicking of cameras and nasty blogs who beg of her perfection or otherwise tear her apart. And so, whether the secret be as hefty as having a private infatuation with inflicting self pain, sex addiction and substance, or rather as small as smoking cigarettes every so often, good girls develop a habit of pretending perfection, while simultaneously plotting hidden ways to escape constant goodness.
All the good girls’ attention and energy is then occupied by both her self-consciousness and her desire to relieve such self-consciousness with secret endeavors of sleeping around and snorting cocaine. There is not even time left for freedom, because she is consumed by the feeling that someone is always watching, waiting for her to humiliate herself, to desecrate her pure image and fall from grace. And, the public reports to the confused female, if she fails to protect her angelic image – no one will want her.
In one respect, this is true. In another, it’s entirely, absurdly false. What should be said is: ‘At first, no one will want you.’ At first, all Non-Good Girls are met with opposition so strong, the opposition itself becomes a dismissal and the world is altogether uninterested in their exploits. Later, however, when the Non-Good Girl manages to conquer her stereotype and reveal a highly talented, unusual sort of female, she is praised for her uniqueness – she is an icon of courageous womanhood.
