Now Playing: Hardest of Hearts by Florence + The Machine (there is love in your body but you can't get it out, it gets stuck in your head, won't come out of your mouth. Sticks to your tongue and it shows on your face that the sweetest of words have the bitterest taste)
Nerd and slut are the two most common stereotypes for pre-teen and teenage girls, and I have had the unusual distinction of being both at various points in my life.
I've never conformed to either stereotype. I was a 'nerd' because I liked books and I've always been academically advanced. I was a nerd because I was short and Asian and even though my talents were in the totally wrong field it was expected that I'd be a heads down, bum up workaholic. What people didn't realize is that I don't study very hard or spend every waking hour studying. I'm also not that brilliant at all, as my maths and science teachers can testify. I just like what I'm good at and I happen to be good at some academic stuff.
I was a 'slut' because I liked boys and behaved in a way that wasn't acceptable because I wasn't pretty or popular. I am convinced that I felt and acted on nothing more than the natural hormonal stuff that comes with growing up, but the 'slut' label was a way of making me feel wrong and ashamed. It was also a reflection of the confusion between female sexuality and male desire - people didn't understand that the cocktail of hormones kicked in whether I was adored or not.
Nerd and slut are often seen as polar opposites, but I see many similarities. Both are labels that identify socially-unacceptable interests - we're afraid of people who enjoy study when we don't like it, and do well when we do poorly. We're afraid of a woman who's interested in sex with or without the affection of men, because she's an unknown quantity, a non-conformist. Both of these stereotypes reflect the fear of the abnormal and the unknown.
Both of these labels are tools for bullying and social isolation - it is hard to confront individual instances of offence, especially when you secretly know that someone is just different, not dangerous. But by implying or assuming things about people, you make them vulnerable to abuse and justifies anti-social behaviour.
Being a nerd or a slut is being blamed and shamed for things out of your control. I was born smart, and yet it was somehow my fault that I could write but couldn't run. I grew up to be an intense and passionate and sexual person, and yet I was treated like I had some kind of disease. It is not anyone's fault that they're interested in sex or literature, nor is there anything wrong with that. The abuse and discrimination is purely based on stigmatization, which is the result of ignorance.
Sometimes people say that these labels are self-assumed or empowering, but I disagree. There have been times when I have actively rebelled against conforming, but I never played to these labels - I was just being myself and people make of that what they will. But once you've got the label, the label sticks - you're no longer a 'girl' or a 'person' or a 'student', you're a nerd or a slut. There is an enormous pressure, being a nerd, to get 80s and 90s and 100s in everything, even things you don't like and aren't good at, and the reaction if you don't live up to these standards is baffling and bewilderingly hurtful - you feel as if your only value as a person is the number the teacher scribbles on your work. Conversely, when you're a slut people treat you in a certain way, expect you to do things and know things, when in reality despite the hormonal rush and flirty personality you are still a twelve year old inexperienced virgin, you're still a vulnerable little kid, and people have no right to treat you like fair game. Sometimes being a nerd or a slut is empowering. Most of the time it's not. It's empowering being yourself and nobody is a nerd or a slut. People who fully conform to these stereotypes simply don't exist.
The thing that nerds and sluts have in common is illicit, unacceptable, profoundly intense passion with almost no outlet. I loved history and books and movies and all this other stuff I had read about and studied in my own time, but I had no one to talk to about it. I became so fascinated with boys and attraction and sex but because I wasn't conventionally pretty I had no way to explore, to experiment, to show people how I felt and to get what I wanted. All this passion and emotion and unanswered questions and burning curiosities build up inside you and in me it manifested as depression. I felt like this as a nerd and as a slut - to me there was no difference, just two different ways to pick on the many things that made me me and not an automaton. That's the uglier side of petty playground politics.
The greatest similarity between the nerd and slut label is that they are both products of fear, ignorance and stigmatization. It's the result of a society that tells us that we have to be beautiful, or rich, or normal, or censored, to earn the right to love and respect and acceptance. People were so afraid of my abilities and how I was willing to present myself to the world that instead of getting to know me and coming to love or hate me as a person they pushed all these stereotypes onto me and tried to get me to put up with all these standards and to put up with lies and misconceptions and false assumptions and harsh judgement. Nerd or slut, it's all about being pushed down when you begin to rise above others, and being made to feel ashamed for being different, special, beautiful in your own way.
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