Well, now that all the excitement of my trip to Europe has had a chance to die down, it's back to posting about everyday stuff - real life on the California coast.
Every once in awhile I'll be somewhere perfectly ordinary - someplace I've been to countless times before - and something I'd never noticed before will hit me. (Sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically.) These things usually make me rethink my position on life and my perspective on whatever issue it brings up. However, the string of events that I'm referring to in this post didn't make me change this particular opinion, it just strengthened it.
There are many days in my life where I hate being a girl. Sure, there's PMS and makeup and the whole image thing, and those all suck, but that's not really what I'm getting at here. Those are the things that I can be hating my gender for before I get out of bed in the morning. The things that tend to hurt me the most as a female, however, are the ones I see happening around me long after I stop hitting snooze.
Girls and women have distinct roles in today's society. Sure, we have a lot more freedom than we used to, and there are various realms of the social stratosphere that are far worse off than we are, but we definitely still have to fight for every little thing we've wanted to gain. I mean, most people don't think about this, but a hundred years ago, the majority of American males didn't have to worry about whether or not they'd be allowed to vote in the next election, whereas all females, regardless of race or social standing, knew they wouldn't get the opportunity. Things like this remind me that as a female, I really shouldn't take anything for granted - not even my ability to follow my dreams.
Being a female musician, I feel the pressure from a lot of men on a regular basis, and as a female brass player and composer, it's worse than it would be if I played a woodwind instrument. [Not hating on the woodwinds here; they just usually include more females.] It drives me crazy when somebody tells me I'm breaking all the stereotypes because of what I do or what I play. Sure, I appreciate what they're trying to say, but even using the word "stereotype" when you're trying to convey that point will only perpetuate said expectation, not break it. When someone comes up to me and says something like, "You're a girl trumpet? Cool!" or "What's it like working with so many guys?" or "Nice playing, Megan," I'm far less likely to be offended. It's a way of acknowledging that what I do isn't the social expectation while avoiding looking like someone who believes that the stereotypes are true and adhered to.
Where is this all coming from, you might ask? Well, it has nothing to do with music. That's just the example I like to use to explain my view to people. One of those things that hardly anyone knows about me is that I want to be capable of protecting myself. I want to be able to fight, to shoot a gun, and in recent years I've developed an interest in archery, though I haven't gotten around to taking lessons yet. The thing is, nobody expects me to be that kind of person, which is why I try not to tell a ton of people. The shooting a gun thing got me a little riled up recently - specifically, how people treat the subject with me versus with my brother.
Before I tell the story, I'll say this: my brother is one of my best friends. He and I have a very strong sibling relationship and he's my go-to guy for a lot of things. In situations like the one I'm about to describe, we usually stick up for each other and we don't fight about how lucky the other one is for having gotten to do something. So this isn't a rant about how my brother gets everything.
Not too long ago, my brother got to see some firearms belonging to someone close to both of us. He didn't ask to see them, and had I been made aware of the fact that there were even firearms to see, I would've been begging to see them. But nobody asked if I wanted to see them, or even know they existed, and finding out secondhand hurt. It drives me crazy that people can assume I'm not interested in guns "because I have boobs," as my mother so aptly put it earlier today. I've watched Top Shot as much as the rest of my family, and watching women who are capable with weaponry is pretty inspirational. [Because really, ladies, who doesn't want to know how to use a grenade launcher?] If you're going to defy the status quo, that's a pretty significant way to do it, since females only got permission to serve on the front lines in the US military a few months ago. But even without taking the status quo into consideration, I like the concept of being a marksman. Not of using guns on people, but of being capable and well-informed and able to defend yourself if forced into dire straits. Annie Oakley was always one of those women I loved reading about as a kid, yet a considerable portion of society seems to think that I shouldn't want marksmanship to be part of my life. All because I'm a woman? Really?
In short: I may not be crazy about spending time in a museum devoted entirely to guns, but I definitely want to know how to use one. What I don't know can hurt me, and I'd really like to avoid the extra pain. I'm a woman, but I'm an individual first and foremost. I want to be able to pursue my own passions on my own schedule. And I'm not going to let the opinions of the masses stop me.
Love you all,
Megan
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