Activists. Entrepreneurs. Feminists. Designers. Filmmakers. Photographers. Creators. Politicians. Innovative women are having a bit of a moment.
In a world where having washboard abs and shiny hair was once the pinnacle of female success, things are finally changing. Powerhouse women like Gucci's girl of the moment Petra Collins, writers Zadie Smith and Roxanne Gay, designers and film directing sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, editor Tavi Gevinson, and beauty revolutionary Emily Weiss are persistently showing up. They influence us, educate us and move the gender goal post one crucial inch at a time. They are the poster children for the next generation. This means that suddenly, somewhere between my early self doubting twenties and the release of the new Joan Didion documentary, being smart is the thing. Intelligence and singular creative thought are now more coveted than H&M's latest collab.
Growing up as somewhat of a school nerd this is music to my ears. As 21st century Women we have rather a lot of things we need to put our minds to. The fact that we still don't have equal pay and the recent outpour of sexual assault allegations in Hollywood are true testament to that. What we have dealt with so far is just the tip of the iceberg. So, I for one am thankful that my energy can now be better spent developing my the space between my ears, rather than trying to reduce the fat between my thighs.
However, as we admire and put this new breed of woman on a pedestal, it's sending ripples out into the wider world. Most disturbingly, out into the tumultuous and still inherently sexist realm of heterosexual dating. Far from men romanticising the good old days when women were just nice to look at and never spoke, instead there is a particular persuasion of fella who seems intent on dating creative, innovative, nasty women types only.
“He liked me because I was bright and shiny. I was this thing that edified him."
My first encounter with one of these men in the wild was on a first date, with a now - praise the lord - ex-boyfriend “Oh so you're CREATIVE” he said beaming from a cosy velvet sofa at The Hoxton, simultaneously filling up my wine glass with more Pinot. "The whole package." I can’t lie I was flattered and what what would later turn out to be fooled. In the past, relationships have blown up into my face due to mismatched ambition, so meeting someone who seemed like and understand how I moved in the world was bloody refreshing.
I saw it change the first time I cried in front of him. Like a beautiful woman taking off her makeup at the end of a date, I was dismantling the facade that he had made me wear. Removing the reasons he wanted to be with me, my superficial strength and glamour dissolved, quite literally in front of his eyes. His adoration of my side projects was only skin deep. He embraced the idea of fucking a feminist to make him feel like a good guy, but he didn’t embrace me. Turns out being with a multifaceted woman was not what he had signed up for.
Like the well versed stereotype of the 'cool girl', the ideal of the ‘creative woman’ is reductive. It removes all personal complexities and nuance, right down to a two-dimensional caricature that we can never live up to. When this idea crossed my mind, I thought I had lost it. Maybe my ego was trying to heal my somewhat bruised heart from the inevitable bitter ending of the relationship, but it turns out I was not alone in my experience.
Cue my friend Heather. Fashion Designer, kooky, always wears a maxi dress and Valentino pumps even in the middle of winter. We were sat over coffee in Soho, lamenting her most recent breakup: “He liked me because I was bright and shiny. I was this thing that edified him.” she said “He rushed to tell his friends that he was dating a fashion designer. Parading me about on his arm at parties, but when we got home he didn’t want to talk about things, about what I was feeling and what was actually going on in the relationship.” “He walked away when the shine had worn off. The shine he’d rubbed off with his clammy hands.”
We all know the trope of the trophy wife is soon to be dead and buried. Melania Trump and Harvey Weinstein’s now estranged wife Georgina Chapman are its final examples, need I say more? So when that’s all said and done, who else are men going to hold up like a prize?
Objectification of women is a societal behaviour that has long been embedded in the male psyche, but now we are wise to this game and are, for the most part, refusing to play ball. This shift to objectifying women’s personalities rather than their bodies is a Darwin style survival tactic that I’m not surprised men have started to adopt. It’s difficult to detect. If you date a strong, independently minded women, how can you be one of the bad guys?
We need to keep writing. Keep directing. Keep debating and creating, and one day, one day soon, we’ll stop being seen as objects, and start being seen as human.
