Girl

I’ve just watched the French film, Girl, a drama about a young ballet dancer that has left me half-exhilarated, half-devastated. Lara starts life as a young boy who dreams of becoming a ballerina. Unfortunately for her, the road to that dream is one fraught with one difficulty after another.

First on Lara’s agenda each day is to take her hormone pills. Next comes the taping of the genitals and squeezing into the leotard before a day of gruelling ballet classes leaves her with bleeding feet, anxiety about stripping down in the girls’ showers and a penile infection that seriously threatens her chances of ever undergoing her dream operation – complete castration.

As if this isn’t enough, Lara also has to contend with boyfriend issues, bullies demanding that she “show hers” because “you saw our pussies, and you are a girl, right? You are one of us, aren’t you?” as well as problems with her high-strung father who throws tantrums because she won’t share her emotional world with him. You can practically see these pressures pounding inside her skull as she sits quietly in the doctor’s office enduring yet one more disappointing prognosis on her coveted transformation.

In one scene, Lara sits in the audience watching a performance on stage, her face a perfect stoical mask concealing all her burning desires. It is at this point that I found myself wanting to step through my TV screen, go up to this girl, take her aside and have a little chat with her. The feeling was visceral – I was gripping the sides of my chair with this longing. And what would I say?

“Listen, my dear, and listen well. You are heading for the heights. A day will come when little girls who dream of being ballerinas will stuff tissues down their leotards so they can be more like you. They won’t do this to make fun of you … any more than little kids today are making fun of Harry Potter by drawing lightning bolts on their foreheads. No – they will do it because they want to be part of something great.

“YOU are great. You have everything: grace, elegance, talent, passion, determination, humility, character, a kick-ass work ethic, courage and gentleness. The only thing you lack is a belief in your own greatness. If you had that, you wouldn’t seek to change yourself to suit the world’s tastes. Who the hell knows what the world’s tastes are anyway? Who knew that a bearded woman would win Eurovision until it happened? Who knew that Coco Chanel clothing would sweep the world until her first model donned that first pantsuit?

“In the same way, YOU will be great too, my dear. You have to learn to say, ‘Fuck you,’ to the world sometimes, to imbibe a little bit of that spirit of your French ancestors during the days of the Revolution – that impulse that screams, ‘Who CARES what you influential people think?!? WE are not listening to you anymore! WE cannot HEAR you! And WE are more important because WE have been suffering for TOO DAMN LONG!'”

I would have got through to her and she would not have gone and done what she does at the end of the film – a horror.

I feel the same sense of sadness and dismay when I read the comments of young girls online – girls caught in the grip of eating disorders, anorexia, bulimia – girls who cut themselves – girls who hate themselves and can’t accept themselves for who they are. I cry, and I want to tell them, “I was once where you are, with older women telling ME not to worry, that it would all be all right, but I didn’t listen, couldn’t listen. I preferred to believe these women were stupid rather than believe I was beautiful.”

There has got to be a Satan in this world. Otherwise, how in hell’s name could the world manage, in less than five decades, to take the most coveted sector of God’s creation – the girl – and convince her that she is the ugliest thing in existence?

Think about it. When watching films like Fiddler on the Roof, which group in society that is sung about are we most drawn to, inexplicably?

“And who does Mama teach… to mend and tend and fix… preparing her to marry whoever Papa picks…”

THE DAUGHTERS! THE DAUGHTERS!

Everyone loves listening to a fairytale … but we all perk up a little bit when the beautiful young princess enters the stage.

Why?

Because she is full of promise. What will the hero do to win her? Will he prove worthy? What will she look like on her wedding day? What will she be like as that all-important social glue of the community, something that is woman’s speciality? How many children will she have? Will they be as wonderful as her? What kind of loving grandmother will she be? How awesome will her food be?

There are so many promises harboured in that extra X chromosome. It has inspired man to create art for millennia. Woman was created so God could show off to Adam and at the same time show Adam his weakness. In seeking to capture the mystery of this creation, man attains greatness – through painting, through music, through sculpture, through literature, through science and through political excellence. Cherchez la femme. Find the woman and you find the answer to every question in existence.

So why does woman, the object of all this attention, get up every morning, stand before her mirror and wish she could take a blade to her flesh, cutting off what she deems superfluous to society’s requirements, similar to our tortured protagonist? Why has life kept from her the mystery to her greatness, her joy and her excellence? Why has some evil force blinded her to the fact that for centuries countless of her ancestors were hunched over watery stews, empty flour sacks and bony livestock, their hands clenched together, praying futile prayers for relief and sustenance, and wishing with all their emaciated being that one day, one day…

“May my descendants have more than I have. Lord, may my descendants, one day, have so much abundance in their lives that they are never skinny again! May their lives be so easy that they have to WORK to lose weight! May the image of hunger and deprivation be so far from their minds as to render fasting an ENJOYABLE pastime!!! AMEN!!!!!”

And now – now that our ancestral prayers have been answered, and the doors of abundance have been thrown open to us, and everything our forefathers DREAMED of having – MORE than they ever dreamed of having – is laid at our feet, ready to be enjoyed by us – why, why, WHY has some evil presence seen fit to riddle us with guilt, shame and self-loathing simply for doing what any normal person would do in the circumstances and enjoy life as it was meant to be enjoyed?

“You’re fat.”

“Your legs are hairy.”

“You have a teeny-weeny.”

When my grandmother was a girl, she KNEW she was hot. And I don’t mean she walked around shaking her ass at fellas or batting her eyes for freebies. I mean, she walked like she bloody well deserved to be a part of this world. She bent over to smell the flowers without thinking somebody was going to walk past and think her a loser. She gave birth and maintained her curves for as long as possible, to give the baby a nice cushioned surface to sleep on. She spoke her mind without wondering whether others would find her too uppity or unladylike. And she was loved ceaselessly by a man until the day she died.

What happened to true feminine confidence? The kind that resides inside, the kind that speaks through gentle eyes, the kind our lovely Lara possesses in spades as she goes about dressing with care, cooking sumptuous meals for her loved ones and putting her little brother to bed, tucking him in, curling up next to him like a protective fairy or angel?

It doesn’t matter if you were born with a vagina or a teeny-weeny; when you feel that feminine voice begin to sing inside your heart, you heed its call. Lara knew she was meant to be a girl. Many of us who were born biologically female do not. We go through life confused and disappointed, letting those we respect more than ourselves decide how much we deserve to be loved and cherished.

What we should be doing is looking to God to decide our worth. I will give one final example and then sign off. Let us look at she who was considered the most desirable woman on the planet: Helen of Troy.

Ah, Helen of Troy. The greatest beauty of all. Even her initials spell HOT. Who was she? Answer: the Daughter of Zeus. How was she raised? Answer: BELIEVING IT. What did she do when things didn’t go her way? Answer: She TRUSTED in Zeus to deliver her. Why? Answer: Because she BELIEVED she was HIS CHILD.

Someone kidnapped and violated you?

Hmph… What more can they do? Zeus will have his vengeance in the end.

You’re far away from home?

Hmph… You’re the child of God. All the world belongs to you.

Half the chicks in town want you dead?

Hmph… You feel sorry for them. They’re not divine like you. Be nice to them.

In the end, it’s what a person believes that dictates their life. It’s what you believe about yourself that determines what the world will believe about you.

“Mummy! Mummy! There’s a bulge in that ballerina’s leotard!”

“I know, dear. Isn’t she simply wonderful?”