Dominique D'Amour Nathan Franklin English 101 - 8am 3rd Part of Refle tion !

"onsters# $age %&%-%&& The girls consumed vast amounts of soda and imitated what they saw on TV, making their own monster show. Using their bodies as their own soundtrack, they burp and fart and make the liquid in their bellies slosh. They took whip cream and wrote swear words on the plates, holding them up to the government in the movies plotting to kill Godzilla. The author comments that she doesn t know why her parents tolerated this reveling in disgusting habits but she s glad they did. !"very belly slosh washed away a little more of the image of feminine perfection hanging over us,! the author says referring to #arol Gilligan s definition of a !perfect girl.! The !perfect girl! is always controlled, polite, smiling and popular. The girls barricaded themselves with their rituals. They acted like monsters and really let loose in order to escape the criticisms nod put downs from their culture and society. They made the world invisible from their eyes for a few precious moments. !$y sister and % were taking back the body, to use the contemporary feminist battle cry....& good deal of feminine behavior is programmed to ease our cultural an'iety out the body in a symbolic way.! (hen women don t eat when they are hungry, when she resents her body because it isn t perfect and when she suppresses her se'uality because good girls !don t like se'! then society is working. (e are repressing and protecting ourselves from desire and indulgence. The author quote s )ousseau, *& decent women s life is a perpetual combat against herself.! &nd how true that was and still is.

These girls ruled their own world for the few hours they had while watching monster movies. There was no one telling her she was fat or gross or unwanted in society. %n real life women couldn t possibly live up to the ideals placed before them, they struggle to do so anyway. They fall into their own self destruction and self+loathing. The author reflects on the first time she watched !Gorgo,! a film in which the mother+ monster tried to stop her child from being turned into a commodity. ,he killed thousands and destroyed a city to save her child. *% wanted my mother to come for me. % was in my own pit, scorched by spotlights, with no way out.! The author wants her mother to protect her from the world instead of agreeing with it. ,he wants her to stop telling her she s fat and to -ust love and protect her. !%n se' education we watched a film in which a little black boy sees a woman in a supermarket + she s white, topless, with #oke bottle caps covering her nipples.! The teacher s e'plained to the class that the film was about racial and economic inequality, never once did they address the se'ual aspect of the movie. The boys laughed and the girls sank in their chairs, ashamed. )osolowski talks about how her mother never wanted her daughter to be limited the way that she herself was growing up. The author s mother did everything in her power to make sure her daughter lived up to her highest potential. .er mother was trained though to ignore her own desires and needs, !...she s as in her own pit and couldn t even see the walls.! /ike in many families, her mother didn t feel entitled, the absence of self+hood creates an obstacle when trying to form an identity. .ow are you to become who you are without self0 1ou can t truly become and create an identity for yourself if yourself doesn t e'ist.