Please Stop Saying "She's desperate for attention!"

Hey everyone!

So, is anyone else sick and tired of hearing people moaning about how certain girls are "desperate for attention"? I mean, it's no wonder female comedians and entertainers are so underrepresented as so often women who claim the limelight are criticised for being desperate for attention.

Madonna looks fed up of it

And no, the reason so many more women are being accused of being attention seeking is not because women are more attention seeking than men. It's because men are more readily accepted in to positions of power, influence and attention. Women, on the other hand, are expected to be more passive and unassuming. If a woman attempts to step in to the limelight and especially if the things she's being noticed for do not fit in to what is expected of a woman, she will be branded as an "attention whore" and discounted because of it. Branding somebody in this fashion is an easy way to belittle or dismiss a person's thoughts, feelings and opinions.

This criticism of women trying to get "too much" attention is applied to a variety of things. It's used as a criticism for photographs, YouTube videos, the amount a woman speaks, hairstyles, fashion sense, career choices and is even used to degrade women who have been courageous enough to speak out about mental health problems, abuse or other issues. Social media is an everyday example of when women are regularly accused of being attention seeking. If a woman updates her status regularly, posts a lot of photos or comments on things frequently she will often be criticised for being attention seeking. This demonstrates the idea that women must be unassuming and not take up too much space, even if it is a virtual space, online.

The insult "attention whore" is also an interesting one as it implies that someone (the word whore obviously heavily implies women) is attempting to gain attention from a large number of people. So why is it so distasteful for women to command the attention of lots of people? I think it is for the following reasons:
1. Being in the limelight usually coincides with being influential
2. It could be considered "slutty" and almost as bad as a woman who has sex with a lot of people. Hence the phrase "attention whore".

But we don't need to be reinforcing that sexist crap anymore!

On a slightly different note, another crazy thing about this "attention shaming" is that everyone needs attention. Everyone needs a certain amount of acceptance, love and attention so why is it such a terrible thing to seek it? And, yes, some people, for a variety of reasons, may be actually be desperate for attention. But instead of bitching about how these people are desperate for attention, we should either give them the love and attention they need or, at least respect the fact that they are going through some personal issues and need a little more attention then perhaps we do. 

Despite this, there is often an assumption that people and especially women who seek attention must be troubled or "messed up" in some way. This is simply untrue. The world is made up of a variety of people; some more introverted, some more extroverted, some very independent, some more reliant on the support of others. None of these traits are better or worse than each other and I personally would like to be more attention seeking, when it comes to talking about concerns or fears.

So, women of the world and anyone else who has ever been labelled as an "attention whore", you continue expressing yourself and taking up space. Don't let anyone tell you that you are not valuable or that you aren't worth paying attention to. You are fab!

I would love to talk about this further so don't forget to drop me a comment below :)