As a former English teacher and English Graduate I despise the word nice. It’s a nothing word, it’s misused to the point where all it conveys is a meaningless splurge of ‘meh’. Indeed, nice hardly carries any positive associations anymore, for instance saying “That’s nice” or “How nice” now vibrates with an undercurrent of smiling through gritted teeth, or veiled insult.
However, having said all that, I’ll be using the dreadful nothing word ‘nice’ throughout this post. I’ve just finished reading ‘The Beauty Myth‘ (and I wholeheartedly recommend it, it’s excellent) and the last chapter discussing where we can go from here got me thinking. Wolf mentions treating other women as women, not competitors. Instead of eyeing a woman from head to toe as our competitor for beauty perfection (which is, of course, an impossible ideal made to destroy our self confidence to ensure we remain politically silent and consume, consume, consume) why not look her in the eyes and smile? Why not open the door for her? Why not treat everyone as a human being and, dare I say it, be nice?
Wolf raises this idea to turn the tide of every-woman-for-herself Western society and reclaim for Third Wave feminism what the Second Wavers had to their advantage; sisterhood. We’re all so atomised, constantly competing with each other and bitching and griping, hating our girl friend for losing 6 lbs, it disempowers us – we’re so busy competing we don’t see that united we are so much more than the sum of our parts.
Now, while I’d love this to become a rallying call for all women to unite and crush patriarchy, I’m a pragmatist not a dreamer. However I think it’s entirely reasonable to ask every person who reads this blog to spread the word of being nice. Smile at people, help them out, open the door for someone no matter what gender/age/species they are, offer to help if you see somebody struggling with a heavy item… This is especially focussed at women. If you see a woman obviously drunk in the street and on her own, call her a licensed cab and get it to take her home; give female hitchhikers a lift; honestly compliment women on how beautiful and wonderful they really are to you; don’t fall for the beauty myth that the media is selling.
Be nice.
