Saturday July 30, 2005
All a girl wants is . . .
To be a frivolous girly-girl. You see, that feminism thing was great and our great-great grandmothers did plenty to help us get the vote, wear trousers and become reigning CEOs, but over-aggression can sometimes be frightening and it’s a bit sad to see that intrinsic qualities of what it means to be a girl (looking pretty, our ability to talk non-stop and our emotional passions) are now oft dismissed as plain stupid.
Trisha and Trixie are all for equality and girly rights but it can go overboard: belligerent women stomping around at the workplace and girls trying to outdo men in everything (remember, equality is being equal to a man, not becoming one).
Sometimes, it’s just too much work to be on top all the time (ha,ha) – often, it’s a lot easier and much more fun to just be a girl and be frivolous in a way only girls can. Even the most corporate-climbing, power-lunching, man-eating girls among us sometimes secretly want to slip on a pair of furry pink bedroom slippers and sink into the world of trashy tabloid gossip once in a while.
It’s important to note that choosing to be shallow is different from actually being shallow. And the latter is a prerogative of girls. It doesn’t mean we are shallow: in fact, just being able to turn shallowness on or off means a girl is not as dumb as she looks.
We think that it is perfectly possible to spend half our time saving the world, and the other coordinating a perfectly splendid wardrobe. (As we write this, Trisha is sitting decked out in plastic pink pearls while Trixie languishes about in a baby-blue pashmina.)
The trick is to have enough kudos behind you to to have your giddy Paris Hilton moments. You work, you have witty opinions, you are deeply serious about the things that really matter. But you still want to wear tulle skirts, tiaras, feather boas, sequins, eat candy floss until you’re sick and own a secret stash of old, though much loved, Barbie dolls.
And so, this frivolity means there is nothing wrong with very long lunches with the girls (since we work very hard the rest of the week), shopping for seven hours (it’s our money) and crying as if it’s a privilege (it’s braver to cry than to hide and ignore).
The thing is, while these things seems stupid to most sensible men, they also function on a much deeper level. Long lunches are often akin to counselling, where advice on all levels is freely offered; shopping can often be a selfless act where things are bought with the sole aim of making loved ones smile; and sobbing into boxes of tissues when you read about the plight of women forced into prostitution stirs you to do something to change it.
Perhaps it’s not such a bad thing if a girl always remain a girl and still be all woman. W
Our new fortnightly column begins today. The writers are: Trisha Rajah, a married, 30- something who believes that being a wife doesn’t spell the end of having a life, and Trixie Kwan, a 20-something with a boyfriend but pretends she’s still single. Trisha and Trixie are serious (enough) in the day but toast all things giddy and girly at night like slumber parties and painting the town and their nails red. They love e-mail because they love attention — write to them at allagirlwantsisemail@yahoo.com.
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