The Digestible Woman

I grew up with the psychological need to be a contrarian. I wanted to go against the word of others, the men in my family to be specific, and turn my cheek to those I felt possessed less knowledge than me. This instinct was charged by the frustration I felt watching the women in my life get held down by the men they surrounded themselves with engaging in aggressive behaviour, such as berating comments or even physical altercation. This experience gave me my first taste of feminism, and a surface level understanding of systemic inequality. As I grew older, I fed this fire by indulging in stories of women scorned, one of my favourites being the story of Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene was one of twelve disciples and a devout companion to Jesus. Though her story is not innately promiscuous, many believed her to be a prostitute, beginning with Pope Gregory declaring her as highly sinful in 591 due to Jesus exorcising seven demons out of her body (which many feminist scholars now believe may allude to the Eastern concept of chakras). This is all to say, Magdalene’s small feature in the New Testament morphed into an infamous story of a deceitful prostitute, and is a direct reflection of our society’s obsession with the modern-day smear campaign against women. 

     You’ve seen it take place, specifically so in online tabloids, where he’s facing allegations of some sort of defamation of character, and she’s pictured with her mouth gaped open and eyes wide in a crazed manner. The comments are filled with remarks along the lines of “I never liked her, now I know why”, or “I knew something was off about her”. It’s shameful to admit, but I’ve fallen for these tactics before. As an impressionable fifteen year old on social media, I truly believed Amber Heard was guilty of being Johnny Depp’s abuser. I let myself fall for the lies that he was blameless and she was the villain because of all the unfiltered media I was consuming on the internet, and it never fails to make me cringe, even to this day. I had no previous knowledge of this case, such as Heard having opened a trial previously in the U.K against Depp and winning, or Depp’s former partners coming out and siding with Amber as they told their stories of surviving his abuse. This is not to say that Heard should be sanctified as a role model in the face of feminism, however, it does beg the question of the “perfect victim”. The perfect victim is someone who acts “accordingly” in a story of abuse. They don’t participate in so-called incriminating activity during the time of the event taking place, and therefore did not warrant the behaviour they faced. In Heard’s case, she didn’t fit the bill of the perfect victim because of the reactionary abuse shown from her side. Simply put; in retaliating towards Depp, she deserved it, and is his equal at best.

Why does the villainization of women come to us so naturally? It is akin to neo-Darwinism, as they attempt to filter us out in hopes of reaching our most digestible form for others to revel in. Simone de Beauvoir tells us that we are not born as women, but rather become them. Her theory of existential feminism tells us that in doing so, we become a reflection of our own environment heavily influenced by others’ jurisdiction on what being a woman actually means, and thus creating a whole new set of boundaries between gender expression. With humans living in an inherently competitive society, it is only natural for a rift to exist between women as well. We’ve subconsciously allowed ourselves to get off on the demise of our members because it makes us feel as if our performance of the female experience is that much more pure. This rift introduces the conversation of intersectional feminism, an ideology introduced by legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw, which focuses on giving women who face overlapping forms of marginalization a voice in a historically one-dimensional feminist movement led mainly by white, straight, cis-gendered women in the mainstream world. 

This being said, the dog-pile on women, victim or perpetrator (in some cases even both), is entertaining because it gives men the chance to feel like the superior race, and women the opportunity to hold themselves to higher standards in light of a convoluted situation. Because even though we like to believe society has progressed past the need for certain medieval practices, moments like these allow us to dress in our finest tunics once more and attend yet another public stoning in the town square to punish whorish behaviour. It is the same kind of curiosity one’s ancestors felt attending the beheading of Anne Boleyn for her many alleged crimes, but hidden behind a faceless, nameless profile comfortably sitting between the four walls of their home, accountable to no one.  

We do not hold a candle to the digestible woman because she is a fantasy. She exists in the ether of our imagination and remains a sight unseen due to the inability for anyone to live such a dull, and lifeless existence. The microscope catches every jagged corner, and therefore makes any woman privy to being herded out. Removed from the race yet still diverting the crowd from the sidelines.