hastobeclever:

This “date a girl who reads” bullshit? 

Tired of it. Here’s why:

1. ABLEISM/CLASSISM - oh you can read complex and romantic texts and understand them deeply and idiosyncratically? that must be nice for you, “girl”. it might have something to do with how your parents raised you on kumon and phonics. it might have to do with your education level, your access to good nutrition while your brain developed. it might just be that your brain is capable of such things for myriad reasons, little of which have to do with how DATE-WORTHY you are. but hey, let’s romanticize the fuck out of this narrowly accessible format of being. let’s make it the best way to be.
2. A NEW RIDICULOUS STANDARD FOR WOMEN - so first, the “girls” had to look spot on, wear just the right clothes, smell like heaven on earth, cook to win your heart, love children, etc. now they just need to read so goddamn much, they barely have time to, oh i dunno, take down the prison industrial complex, compete in any/all male-dominated fields of employment, or pursue their own goddamn dates. they’ll just sit there, looking poetic and reading deep books that you, date-hunter, happen to be able to speak upon, and they’ll make your own privileged existence noteworthy. hell, maybe they’ll write it all down, make you a protagonist. OH and because she understands literary shit, you HAVE PERMISSION TO LIE TO HER. and let her down. and despite putting her on a goddamn pedestal, whoever you are, date-hunter, you DESERVE HER. just like every standard of femininity or female-ness. “girls” have to be wonderful, miraculous, beautiful BUT ACCESSIBLE.
3. the juxtaposition prose/poem? “you should date an illiterate girl”? WOW WHAT TRIPE. what classist, assumptive, nasty, mean-hearted bullshit.
4. yes, let’s all have babies and get married. cuz that’s what people do. of course the girl who reads will say yes and read to your beautiful normative children. and ASLAN? sure. yep. jesus. that’s great. 
5. i hate it i hate it i hate it how can ANYONE think this is romantic?
6. BUT SO MANY PEOPLE I LOVE AND RESPECT THINK IT’S GREAT. 
7. GRUMBLE RAGE GRUMBLE.

and sure. it’s a pretty piece of writing. it’s got a nice tone and flow and rhythm. and if it were just that, that’d be fine. good work, writer. but everyone is reblogging and quoting the shit out of it because “oh that’s nice, i want a girl like that/i am a girl like that” whatever. BUT OF COURSE. it’s the new stepford wife. it’s the idiosychratic hipster madonna, pre-child. it’s the new heteronormative ideal woman. everyone wants to be or to have one of those, at least in their collection if not on their mantle as a permanent installation. but that’s just it. it is an object. it is made up and it is just as fucking exclusive and objectifying and impossible to attain. and things that use the imperative voice like that? those things need to be careful. ideally, it needs to change itself from “date a girl who reads” to “once i (author) dated a girl who was like this and she happened to identify as a reader but clearly not all girls who identify as readers are like this, and i mean maybe i didn’t deserve this girl, but i think i did” or “i (author) am like this and i am a girl who reads, but clearly not everyone is like this. i just think that oftentimes girls who read don’t get romanticized so i am trying to help with that. that said, i really hope people don’t make girls who read uphold all these bizarre standards.”

and i understand that that is far less smooth. but the fact that everybody is reblogging this thing like it’s some beautiful salvation to normative standards? HORSEPOO I SAY.

I re-posted that thing even though I’m someone who struggles with reading and often feels inadequate because of how unread I am. maybe I re-posted it because I want to romanticize reading in a world where books seem to have been replaced by screens, or maybe because it reminds me of the beauty of reading that I remember enjoying when I could, or maybe it’s cause I support things that make nerdiness hot. 

or maybe it was about shame. ‘see! reading is makes you intelligent and attractive and interesting. you need to read more so that people will think that about you.’

that shame doesn’t need reinforcing.