An eye opening speech. Thank you, Greta Gerwig and also America for delivering it so perfectly.

If you haven’t seen the film, but intend to, I advise you not to read this. It’s not a spoiler, but it’s best to experience these words as you’re watching the film. However, if you don’t intend to watch the film, then I do recommend to read this speech, it just may open your mind a little.

People have so many problems. Whether actual ones or even if the situation we’re in momentarily seems close to perfect, when nothing’s missing, we still have some kind of problems (or we invent them). One of them is just being the sex we are. In this case the speech exposes the problem of being a woman. It is hard being a woman in this world, even in the, so called, free world and democracy, even in this weird woke world. We can invent any inclusive word, but it won’t change the actual situation.

The reason for sharing this speech here so that’s it’s out there even more. It’s worth reminding ourselves that we’re not alone, that pretty much every woman (and man) in the contemporary world has some of the same problems regarding human relations, whether women to women or men to women.

Life’s not that hard, we can easily remove some of these problems, that we made mostly ourselves in the first place, in response to the situation we live in.

Here’s the monologue, enjoy:

“It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.

You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people.

You have to answer for men’s bad behaviour, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.

But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that, but also always be grateful.

You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It’s too hard! It’s too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.

I’m just so tired of watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us. And if all of that is also true for a doll just representing women, then I don’t even know.“

People, the beautiful souls, let’s not make our problems larger than they are. Let’s live the life we (were) meant to live, try to enjoy ourselves as best as possible and work towards our common goals of living in this beautiful world, instead of beating ourselves up over the little things.

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