The Sunset Strip Diaries by Amy Asbury Read Free Book Online

in a huge office, running the world. Or at least Paramount.
     
    But as soon as I hit puberty, I found myself lacking the confidence to make any of my dreams happen. I almost felt like a fool. Looking around, I saw that women did not run businesses (some did, of course, but I didn’t know that).They were supposed to be sexy, pretty, thin and more or less subservient. They were supposed to be in the background unless they were a sex object, in which case they were openly ogled.
     
    The women who were really sexy were the only ones who had any power over anybody. Guys fell down to their feet drooling and hitting themselves on the head with a cartoon hammer. The nice, un-sexy women were secretaries, teachers, and housewives. Wallflowers. I look back and I realize that part of the sadness and depression I felt as a teenager was the mourning of my old self. I knew I gave up on everything I ever wanted to do, and I was so disappointed in myself. I knew I lost my spark and my drive. I quietly buried it all and just drowned myself in makeup and turned up my records. It was a waste if I ever saw one.
     
    Where did I get the message that I couldn’t be something other than pretty, sexy and thin? There is the obvious: music videos, movies, TV- every piece of popular media to which I had access. It was 1987. The images and messages I grew up with were at an all-time high in sexism. I think back, and the only chance I would have had is if the movie Working Girl would have come out a year earlier. I wasn’t exposed to any other message for girls other than you had to be sexy or you would be ignored, considered boring and be doomed to a life in the background. Screw that. I wasn’t going out like that.
     
    I also picked up on how my father talked about women and the things he saw as important in a woman. He was probably no different from other men during those years, but this is what I noticed: women had to be thin. That was most important. Whenever my father described a woman, he first mentioned whether she was heavy or not. It was never if she was a good person or not, or any other value she had- it was always her weight. It also didn’t help that he had tried to talk me down from my ambitions, sometimes resorting to mockery. The other, stronger, message my father gave me was that I was desired sexually. I honestly remember thinking more or less, Okay, this is my value. This is what I bring to the table. This is my angle.
     
    I was intelligent enough to know it wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right, but that seemed beside the point. I remember thinking that it didn’t matter whether or not I agreed. Things were going to go on as they were and I needed to work with it. I had to adapt. I wasn’t confident enough or mature enough to take a stand and try to change things; I was determined to play the game. And believe me, I wasn’t in tears thinking of having to play the friggin’ game- I was excited. I was like, Yay! I’m gonna do something bad!
     
    My parents were paying very little attention to me, so it was the perfect time to try something risky. I decided that my new look would be a Heavy Metal chick. It was not nerdy. It was cool. I would make myself into Jeff Hunter’s dream girl. I figured I could probably pull off the look, because it didn’t require a bunch of expensive clothing. The rock look was just black concert T-shirts, short skirts and high heels.  I had most of that in my closet already.             
     
    The problem with me was that I saw everything in black and white. I was very extreme. When I set my mind to be cool, I was going to be cool no matter what it took. If something didn’t feel right to me, I wouldn’t stop and re-evaluate. I would barrel right past the feeling and push myself to follow through with the plan. I didn’t consider that there were many subcultures of cool and uncool. I just knew there was good (boring, nerdy, wallflower), and there was bad (sexy, pretty,