Women and confidence

If even you personally do resist all the marketing and advertising telling you how you should look you are still surrounded by people who have fallen for its messages and who will judge and treat you accordingly; all those people who think you have failed to make the effort rather than have taken a conscious decision.

If you're on Twitter, @seriouspony has had some very interesting stuff to say about how we might think we're immune to manipulation but fuck no. Except more eloquently than that.

That thread came up in my active convos. It's phrased something like: What makes a frump. I nearly replied 'being female' because it is a word only used to describe women. So it doesn't surprise me it covers a whole other range of isms either! I would undoubtedly be called a frump. I have short hair for a start and like wearing jogging bottoms.

I also dislike the inference that if you are influenced by media/advertising in any way that you are somehow lacking. Be it in brains, strength, confidence etc. We are all subject to them pretty much all the time, unless you live like a hermit. Even if it is something as obvious as not dressing your sons is dresses. That is societal influence.

And I don't think it is up to women to be strong enough to ignore these messages all the time. It is exhausting (although as we live in a patriarchy it is meant to be exhausting). It is very patriarchal to have a situation where the oppressed are bombarded with certain messages at all turns and then be told it is up to them to resist.

The frump stuff really gets me. I immediately wondered if I was frumpy and how I could work on being less frumpy.

And I'm not stupid just human. We are social animals: need to belong, feel attractive, valued, and we aren't always perfectly emotionally strong.

Briar I was called a lesbian at 11, before I even knew what it bloody meant. It's a long journey that's not over yet.

Have any of you read the frump thread on S&B? It gave me the major rage. Classist (cheap clothes are nasty), Racist (swishy hair is IN), heteronormative (short hair is sexless; why would one not want themen to approve?), disablist (one must be slim)... one mustn't try too hard (over-styled hair) but not 'let oneself go' (unacceptable hair or not giving a shit about ones' appearance), ageist (over 50s don't work / socialise / exist). And, most of all, misogynist. Women must show no signs of a) having given birth or b) having gone through the menopause.

Fuck that shit. Patriarchal policing in one thread.

If clever people didn't fall for advertising then no one, say working as a journalist on broadcast news, would wear makeup. But they do.

And yes I think women are always on show, and I'm not talking about beauty ads here - I've never in my life heard a man approached by a stranger and told 'chin up it might never happen!' but I regularly hear this happen to women. When this happens the woman is being judged for not obviously being happy and smiley in public.

It's happened to me lots of times, particularly when I was younger and alone. It made me really paranoid that my 'resting' expression wasn't happy enough and there was somehow something wrong with me that I wasn't able to smile all the time when my mind was on other things.

I realize now that it was totally unreasonable if those men to expect me to constantly look pleasant - to treat any passing woman as decorative in their life, and feel free to chide them when they are doing woman-in-public wrong by not smiling all the time.

It's easier said than done, specialsubject.

Advertisers spend millions on working out how to get us to feel a certain way, how to make us react how they want, how to make us spend.

I'm not immune to it, at all, and I'm a cynical middle aged woman who is abnormally comfortable in her own skin and not particularly dim (erm feel uncomfortable saying that but don't think I am!).

I can watch an ad and see exactly what they are doing but also feel it working, sometimes.

I buy crap that I know in my heart of hearts won't do anything, but I buy it anyway....

Also, the idea that people who are clever won't "fall for it" and it's just the thickoes who will - who will end up spending £££ for some relief from a constant feeling of inadequacy that has been fostered over a lifetime - well that's pretty shit for them isn't it. Not that I think it works that way, anyway.

I just find your response a bit superficial, I guess. There is a lot going on with this stuff, I think. Advertisers wouldn't spend £££ if there wasn't.

please don't assume that this is a question of some women being unintelligent - it really isn't

let's face it, the ads are not aimed at those smart enough to laugh and say 'bollocks to that'

the job is to teach our daughters, nieces etc that ads lie, full stop. Ignoring marketing never did anyone any harm.

am I on show when I leave the house? I do try to be clean, tidy and covered in accordance with local custom, but so does everyone else I know of both genders.

Gin your post really made me laugh :)

It's not strange that women lack confidence in a world ruled by men. The world needs to be fixed not our individual looks. Unhappy, insecure types are marketers dream though. I know I have been one.

You too balls? God I wish I had understood that I wasn't straight much, much earlier. Well I did know but you know, was full of internalized lesbophobia.
I like confident hairy women with no makeup. Men better learn to appreciate that too

That's the thing though Petula, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with you are all. Without looking in a mirror, tell me the things about you that make you you. Are you funny/witty? Warm? Sympathetic? Get on well with others? Good at something (please don't say nothing, that wouldn't be true or realistic)? Artistic/creative? Brave? Energetic? Hardworking/ industrious? Philosophical? Broadminded? Enthusiastic? Diplomatic? Resourceful? (Yes, I am basically going through a thesaurus of positive adjectives). I have specifically chosen words which cannot be associated with stereotypically 'feminine' traits, as it seems that women often do not think about whether these words apply to them. We are so much more than just an accumulation of our physical attributes, which is often the message that marketing gives us.

The other problem with the whole selling confidence concept is that the fact that I have very low self-confidence means that "confidence" feels like yet another fucking thing I've failed at.

So not only have I failed in looks, skills, intelligence etc, I've also failed at being a "confident woman", because products etc don't make a difference so it must be something intrinsically wrong with me

Makes me think of this...

I'm pretty drunk but I agree with zazzles007.

YY CKD. And the 'how to give your man the best blowjob of his life' bullshit.

Isn't this basically the whole of marketing when it comes to women? Knock women's confidence, plant anxiety in their minds, and then claim your product, your magazine, your self-help book has the key to solving the problem. I particularly hate it with magazines like Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire when they claim to empower women by solving problems they've manufactured in the first place.

I've had recently realised that my primary sexual attraction is towards women. (I am married to a man.) As I've become more secure in my sexuality I have found that the male gaze has become very unimportant in my life. It's very liberating to no longer give a fuck about the male gaze. I feel so much more confident in myself and no longer feel as worried about conforming to an image of womanhood that doesn't reflect my personality.

But I still struggle with my behaviour towards men. For example, an ex-colleague who I worked with for about two weeks has been in touch. He's suggested we meet up, and frankly I don't want to, but instead of saying 'no' directly, I've been arsing around thinking of ways to say no without upsetting his manliness. Or something. Apparently my man-pleasing days are not entirely behind me. :(

I hate this whole women and confidence thing in marketing and in other spheres as well. Men (on the whole) are more confident in who they are, and who they are is never questioned in the same way that who a woman is, is questioned. A woman should be confident for her personal qualities, not because (for example) she has bought some expensive solution from a company which makes her skin flawless, or her hair straighter or a different colour. Men are only just starting in this particular journey with the whole male beauty industry. It makes me angry to see how women are socialised to be so lacking in confidence.

Feeling 'on show' everytime you leave the house is mentally exhausting.

Nailed it. I feel on edge the moment I walk out of the house because I know that I exist to be visually pleasing to men and that I fail badly at that.

YY gin. It's all consumerist bullshit aimed at undermining women in the pursuit of selling more crap.

Lots of women do lack confidence (which is no doubt one of the reasons advertisers use this line) but I don't think anyone is going to become more confident as a result of their cereal bar purchasing decisions.

I don't think it's a surprise that women sometimes lack confidence, and I don't think the blame is all the beauty industry.

The way women are constantly vocally judged by others isn't just about how they look, but also about how we behave 'why weren't you friendly to that man' etc

Feeling 'on show' everytime you leave the house is mentally exhausting.

Yes, absolutely Seven, that was part of the routine but less explicitly.

All these things are really selling you a problem so they can sell you a solution.

One of the first "confidence" boosting product segments was feminine hygiene. The basic idea was "be confident in yourself," but the underlying message was "only be confident in yourself if you're using our product, because otherwise you'll be smelly and leaky."

A great deal of these product marketing endeavors seem to be targeted toward making women believe that they are "choosing" the very things that exploit them.

Hmmm. I guess because the overriding message given to women every waking moment of their lives is "you're shit"? Everything about us is unsatisfactory: from the tops of our heads (our hair is too thick/thin/frizzy/flat/straight/curly/brown/etc) to our feet (too bony/fat/long/short/calloused/blah blah who even fucking cares any more) and every part in between (too much hair/ hair in the wrong place/ too plump/ too flat/ just kill me now).

Stage 1 of advertising/marketing is "FUCK! You suck!"
Stage 2 is "Buy this and suck less."

As you may be able to tell, the only product I'm spending money on to make myself feel less terrible at the moment is booze.