I just read an article about the portrayal of "omega" males (i.e. losers) in the cinema today and a response to that on jezebel, wondering why there are no films about omega females, and I gotta tell you, it all makes me really uncomfortable for reasons that are...crystal clear, akshully. See, I am a loser.
By every standard my culture throws at me, I am a failure. I'm not married, nor are men fighting to get with me. I don't have a prestigious job nor am I on the fast track to anywhere. I don't have much money. I don't own a wide variety of expensive consumer goods and high tech doodads. I don't have any brilliant, successful, athletic children who are, furthermore, going to give me brilliant, successful, athletic grandchildren. I don't have a gorgeous, pristine house that is immaculately clean. I'm not beautiful and I'm not thin. I've pretty much tanked at everything society tells me I should have succeeded at as a woman. And I've been made to feel ashamed about most of the things on that list at one time or another.
Mostly I don't give a shit anymore, though if you're a careful reader and take fucking notes LIKE YOU SHOULD, you can probably guess which of those things are still capable of making me feel like poop from time to time. But, mostly, I know what my worth as a human being is, big ol' societal loser or not. And yet still it rankles when I see glib commentary in the media about whole classes of people being "omega." Do we really need to do that (and on a feminist website, for fucks sake)? Do we really need to look at humanity in some kind of reductive sociobiological way, where if you aren't the alpha chimp who gets to mate with whomever you want and eat the best berries, you might as well crawl off into the bush and die?
I dunno. Maybe I'm just bitter. Plus I don't trust hierarchies. See below. Cough.
xoxo
2 comments:
Your devoted regular readers will likely disagree with more than one of those assessments, except the part about how you know your worth really but get beat up by the "shoulds." Been there, maybe five times a week. Does anyone remind the fools who make such glib dichotomies that there are a lot of letters between alpha and omega?
For years, I've considered a rent-a-kid service. No reason why the business plan couldn't expand to grandchildren ;)
From a fellow "loser" who isnt married, has no men in her life, no kids, works 3 part time jobs (not every day) that do not require a college degree, is overweight...and BALD (alopecia)... this omega/alpha/beta crap is just that...crap.
Even wolves accept the omegas. Yeah, they cant breed (or theyre not supposed too, not sure how animals remain celibate) but theyre still part of the pack. It takes all kinds.
Desiderata says "Listen to others, even the dull and ignorant, they too have their story"
Amen
Post a Comment