Warning: Content may be more liberal than usual
Doesn’t Kate McCann look guilty?
She never cries in public over the disappearance of her daughter Madeleine earlier this year while the family was on vacation in Portugal. McCann always looks composed, calm, even a little arrogant in pictures. She just looks guilty, doesn’t she?
How is McCann, condemned already by her perceived cool demeanor, somehow the one exclusively to blame for Madeleine’s disappearance even though husband Gerry McCann seems to be a fully functional capable adult as well? Because if the issue is one of a missing child, the focus (read: blame) is on the mom, not the dad. It’s somehow the mom’s fault. Remember Patsy Ramsey? Her “overly emotional” behavior at her daughter’s funeral caused speculation that she was trying a little too hard to show that she was a mother in mourning. No one looked too hard at dad John Ramsey, just as the media don’t seem to be too concerned with Gerry McCann’s emotional composure.
Can you control your facial features all the time? I can’t. Who can truly evaluate whether or not I am cold, unemotional or joyous based on my facial expression? No one can. Women like in the spotlight, focused on 24/7, living with high stress- like McCann- can get a bad rap, undeserved because they look a certain way at a certain time. The implied message is that women must act perfectly in every situation. And, rest assured, the woman in the spotlight is not the one who will be judging what’s perfect and what’s not. She is most definitely eliminated from the conversation. She is the object, not the subject of the dialogue.
The answer isn’t to try to live by someone else’s standard of living, what they think you should be doing but rather, to deliberately choose to buck the system. Take off the mask that society and the media are foisting on you. Acknowledge it for what it is: a naked deception, a duplicitous action of imposed conformity. This is true for men as well. Show us what you’ve got, guys. When anyone-man or woman-allow themselves to be defined by standard’s that are not their own, they lose self-esteem and are thus less able to deal with challenges that come our way.
What mask are you guilty of wearing?