How you, too, can help cure Female Insufficiency Disorder

I’m going to level with you.  I have a problem.  A serious one. 

I suffer from Female Insufficiency Disorder (FID).  (See?  I’m so insufficient I can’t even think of a good acronym.)  It’s a psychological disorder I’ve just made up to explain how totally inadequate I sometimes feel as a human being, product that I am of a misogynistic, sexist society.  I’m hoping that by sharing my experiences with you I can reach some fellow suffers and assure you that you are not alone.  We can fight this thing together.

What is Female Insufficiency Disorder (FID)?

FID is a distressingly common disorder primarily affecting women, although individuals of all genders and sexes may experience some symptoms of FID.  It arises in reaction to the commonly-held belief that women are an inferior sex, and that they should be treated as such and act accordingly.  While FID has a wide variety of manifestations, common features include: uncertainty about one’s worth and standing in society, fears of inadequacy, inappropriate self-censure, and/or feelings of rage at social injustice.

What Causes FID?

In a word, society.  Women in many societies are considered a lesser subspecies of humanity (a.k.a. Man), and in accordance with this, women are commonly measured against men and deemed inferior.

Below are some examples of commonly-held social perceptions which foster FID:

·       Women should be soft, submissive, beautiful, maternal, sexy, feminine, diminutive, and so forth.

·       Women who struggle in reasonable, justified ways with difficult situations or crises are labeled weak, feeble, flighty, emotional, or incapable; women who overcome their obstacles are labeled bullish or mannish, or are seen to have gotten an unfair advantage due to some sort of quota-filling.

·       Women who choose motherhood as a career are seen as taking the easy way out or naturally assuming the only role for which they are suited; women who exercise their human right to work and enjoy a career outside of mothering are criticized as unconscionably selfish harpies (while men who do the same are considered successful and hard-working).

·       Women who call out bigoted or misogynistic remarks are labeled femi-Nazis or are considered to be on their periods.

·       Women who experience any emotions at all are on their periods; women who don’t show emotions are ice queens (and men who show no emotions are strong, stoic, or tough).

·       Women who enjoy sexual activity with a variety of partners are sluts, whores, prostitutes, jezebels, temptresses, shameless, loose, sinful, evil, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum (while promiscuous men are players or lucky); women who reject sexual advances are shrews, spinsters, cold, heartless, and (paradoxically) sluts (because they wouldn’t have received a sexual advance if they hadn’t hinted that they wanted one).

·       Women are solely responsible for men’s actions in relation to them, and should be constantly aware of how their clothing choices, words, and attitudes are affecting both their desirability (so as not to attract any unwanted but clearly justified sexual advances) and their credibility as humans (since they can’t be taken seriously until they prove they’re as good as men).

It should be noted that individuals of all sexes and genders have been reported to lend credence to these incorrect labels, and in fact women are often shown to be their own harshest critics (i.e. misogynists).

Given the above examples, it becomes immediately clear that women can’t win.  Furthermore, exposure to these labels is a standard part of every woman’s daily experience, both overtly in media such as television, movies, books, news outlets, and practically the entire internet; and also more subtly in friendly conversations, social settings like bars or coffee shops, the workplace, the gym, the beach, public transportation, any public setting, or in front of a mirror. Attempts to accommodate or defy these labels can in some cases lead to psychological discord and intense self-censure.

When a woman ends up spending more time considering her sex and how it contributes to society’s perception of her than the average man does about his sex, it surpasses what should be a morally acceptable level of sex-related self-censure and becomes Female Insufficiency Disorder (FID).

What are the symptoms of FID?

Symptoms may include, but are not limited to:

1.       Seething envy toward anyone perceived to be (A) prettier, (B) smarter, (C) more successful, (D) more confident, (E) funnier, or (F) happier than oneself.

2.       A paranoid need to prove one’s own worth to anyone who will pay attention, in what one thinks is a modest way but which really presents to others as deeply ingrained hubris.

3.        A constant sense of disgust when viewing one’s image in the mirror, thinking overmuch about food or exercise, or seeing supposedly more attractive people on television.

4.       A pervasive sense of failure disproportionate to any setbacks encountered in life.

5.       Acute feelings of intense stress in situations perceived to evaluate one’s professional, academic, social, psychological, or physical merit.

6.       Endless second-guessing of one’s: perception of self; role in society; alignment with stereotypes; need to align to stereotypes; stance on social, political, and moral issues pertaining to women; and self-worth.

(Warning: All symptoms listed above are based solely on the author’s own observations of self.)

How is FID diagnosed?

FID is a complex disorder characterized by a wide range of possible symptoms.  Diagnosis is based on self-report and/or behavioral observation.  It’s like pornography; you know it when you see it.

How is it treated?

There is no guaranteed cure for FID on an individual level.  All commonly employed treatment methods (including self-esteem building exercises, meditation, learning to ignore it, becoming so ridiculously accomplished/awesome it defies all possible rebuke, and substance abuse) only treat the symptoms rather than the disease itself.  For this reason, after intense treatment FID sufferers often initially report repaired feelings of self-worth and accomplishment, but relapse is common and many people with FID will experience lifelong difficulties.

In order to properly cure FID, society as a whole must be cured of its misconceptions regarding women, who are not weaker, dumber, crazier, more fickle, more submissive, more flirty, more hypersensitive, more dramatic, worse at driving, less sensible, less capable, or otherwise more easily pigeonholed than men, despite all stereotypes to the contrary. 

Put simply, every person alive has a responsibility to retrain their society-warped brain to ignore sex and gender as factors in how we judge others and what we expect from them.  To do your part to reach a cure, you must treat every individual you encounter first as a person, as if sex or gender didn’t exist at all.  If that sentence sounded unconquerably difficult or crazy, it’s only because you were raised in the context of misogyny and female-degrading sexism. 

That sentence bears repeating:  If judging all people equally regardless of sex or gender sounds crazy to you, that’s because you are a misogynist raised in a misogynistic society.

The good news is, we can cure ourselves of misogyny.  And in curing ourselves, we can contribute to the worldwide eradication of Female Insufficiency Disorder.