Because you were born as a woman, there is a role or rule you should follow. How do you think of this thought? Of course we live in the 21st century and of course I don’t want to say about sexual discrimination. Then, let’s ask the question again. In your life time, have you never once forced to act like a woman? Liza Donnelly acknowledged the role of women but confessed that she was afraid of 1womanhood. “When I was growing up, little girls were supposed to be kind and thoughtful and pretty and gentle and soft. And we were supposed to fit into roles that were sort of shadowy. Really not quite clear what we were supposed to be,” she said.
In spite of a new generation or negation of sexual discrimination, we live in the world full of sexual rules which are quite various and numerous. If you don’t know well this rule, there is a very easy way to check it, look at your figure and look at your friend’s figure. There is little difference. In this way, we’re told what shape we’re supposed to be in. We’re told what to wear and how to do our hair and how to behave. It is a very minor role and mostly we don’t know that because it’s done unconsciously. According to New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly, these rules are constantly monitored by the culture. We’re being corrected. And surprisingly, the primary policemen are women, because we are the carriers of the tradition. We pass it down from generation to generation. Although maybe almost all women think this rule is bad, we are keeping this rule. Then is this rule really negative? Liza Donnelly’s answer is, no.
What she wanted to say is not denial of women’s roles and rules. What she really wanted to say is that we can have the great potential to be change-agents because we are in a 2tenuous position and our role is tradition-keepers. Because women are on the ground floor, and we know the traditions so well, we can bring a different voice to the table. And she chose humor as the tool of change. She asked, “What better way than to change them with humor?” Humor relies on the traditions of a society. It takes what we know, and it twists it. It takes the codes of behavior and the codes of dress, and it makes it unexpected, and that’s what elicits a laugh. Liza Donnelly’s chose humor for the power to change. Then how about you? Think of yourself. What is your power to realize your potentiality?
1 Womanhood : [NOUN] Womanhood is the state of being a woman rather than a girl, or the period of a woman’s adult life.
EX) Pregnancy is a natural part of womanhood.
2 Tenuous : [ADJ] If you described something such as a connection, a reason, or someone's position as tenuous, you mean that it is very uncertain or weak. EX) The cultural and historical links between the many provinces were seen to be very tenuous.
