The Minimum Acceptable (for Women)

Somewhere I learned that the minimum acceptable level of a variety of things was higher for me as a woman than it was for a man. I sometimes still stumble across something that I hadn’t realized I’d internalized as a “minimum” until someone asks me to give it up. Women are expected to put in a minimum on caring for their appearance and their clothing, to the point that most of the time we forget how uncomfortable everything is—until Covid hits and we all get to wear pajamas all day every day and wonder why the hell don’t we always wear comfortable clothes and fuck shoes all together, or at least high-heeled ones?

Part of this training for women includes the insistence that we never talk about the effort that goes into our minimum. We’re not allowed to complain that men don’t have to spend an hour doing their hair and makeup to be taken seriously at a good job. We’re not allowed to complain that a lot of women’s products are more expensive than men’s products—or that we just have to buy more products period.

Speaking of periods, women aren’t allowed to talk about those, either. Men consider it “gross” and are often ignorant to the level that they think women can “hold it in” when it would be convenient, like working an eight-hour shift, or when it would get all over a white outfit (Hint: periods are not convenient). We’re also not supposed to talk about pain. I hope it’s getting better now, but even in the 80s and 90s, complaining to a doctor about pain during your period often got you eye rolls. Even from female doctors. That was something for you to deal with on your own, and if you have endometriosis or polycystic ovaries, well, keep that to yourself??

There are other minimums, such as using a certain kind tone of voice when speaking—even or especially if angry, smiling at all times because your face is actually owned by other people, having your stomach touched by strangers when you’re pregnant (not to mention the current spate of laws that are going around the states to regulate publicly a whole host of other aspects of pregnancy.

Another minimum for women is in household chores. Women are expected to not only do a lot of the household work, but to do it without making a fuss over the fact that they’re doing it, without pointing out how much more of it they’re doing than their male partners, and without asking for pay or help to do those tasks. Women are expected to do emotional care, as well. At work, women are often the ones who are asked or who volunteer to plan parties (without extra pay or extra recognition), to be in charge of condolence or congratulation cards or gifts, to listen to other people’s problems and then put in extra work time to make up for it. And to not do this makes you monstrous on a strange level because, again, these things are a “minimum.”

I realized when my therapist suggested that I could stop exercising on the level that I did at the time (ready at any given week for an all-day Ironman triathlon). I thought about it, but I ultimately couldn’t allow myself to do that. Because to me, exercise is also part of the “minimum” that a woman has to put in without people acknowledging it is true. Women who don’t are said to have “given up” or “stopped taking care of themselves” in pathetic tones, while men who do the same don’t receive nearly the same censure. What is weird about this is that I also don’t count things like gardening, mowing the lawn, or even walking as “exercise.” To me, exercise literally has to be painful to the point that I nearly puke. Yes, pain is a necessary minimum of being a woman in my mind, and I don’t think I’m the only one.

I’ve sometimes ignored these “minimums” and simply paid the price. I’ve been told I’m rude and abrupt in speaking, when I’m actually just talking like most men. I haven’t owned a pair of high heels for years. I don’t wear itchy lace anymore. And with each passing year, it seems a new thing pops up on my list of things I will no longer do for other people as a “minimum” for being a woman.

I’ve realized that when I say “minimum acceptable level” of anything, I actually mean the level for deserving to be alive. And it’s not just something that patriarchy has taught men. It has taught me this, as well, gone deep into my psyche at a young age while I watched what my parents thought were harmless Disney shows. I learned that if I don’t meet my own standards of minimum for any length of time, I begin to feel depressed. I wonder if I really deserve to be alive. As if being alive is something one has to earn, by achieving a minimum which is never spoken of or acknowledged, but is very real.