– In your social account, you write about gender inequality, stereotypes, feminism and women’s rights. What prompted that start, to bring to the surface, to share in public?
– The current situation in Lithuania and around the world, as well as the lack of information, spoke about it. The word “feminism” in Lithuania is taboo, everyone imagines feminists as naughty, armpit-free, men-hating bobs who want some additional rights, because the current ones are not enough for them. You won the right to vote, you can drive a tractor, what more do you need? By law, women in Lithuania may have all the rights, but the daily reality is different. Women are still considered inferior to men, tried if they do not choose the “traditional” role of women in cooking and having children (I have nothing against those who choose it), tried as they dress, constantly sexualized, and subjected to a great deal of violence. Reality has led to these issues being brought to the fore. I am very disappointed when women refuse to call themselves feminists and support misogyny.
– Which topics resonate the most?
– Stories about sexual harassment and abuse have received the most echoes so far. After the assassination of Sarah Everard in London on March 3 this year, sharing this page, the girls began writing that they felt insecure and were really afraid of men. Stories ranged from unexpected slaps in the butt from an unknown man, a tracking house, to rape in the woods. Most of the messages I received came from minors, there were many stories of how they were abused at home, by their own parents or grandparents. While it was actually very difficult to read them, I was glad that they found a safe space to share them with me and my followers, thus encouraging as many women as possible to talk about it. Over 500 women have written to me right now and I get a couple more stories every day. This is a very big public problem, the accusation of the victim is so much that the girls are afraid to tell someone about it.
Young girls, when they were abused at home, did not understand what was going on at all, and now they realize that they live with great psychological traumas and are ashamed to tell someone about it. That is why we need additional laws to protect women, because the current ones really do not work.
– How often are women themselves to blame / feel guilty?
– We almost always blame the woman herself. You walked down the street too late, you put on a short skirt, you made it through bright makeup. It’s so deeply ingrained in women that often they really feel guilty. No one is talking about the bullies and rapists themselves. No one asks what the rapist was wearing. We always try to look for some reason to justify the perpetrators.
– You share fairly open stories, photos. Let’s say about the fact that you worked striptease clubs. Uncommon about this opens up. Wasn’t it daring to tell?
– It took me a long time before I really loved my body, so now I can be proud to share open photos because I am not afraid to show him or talk about him. I really want to inspire other people to love my body as well.
Working at a strip club helped on the path to love and self-confidence. Although I worked there for a short time, maybe about 6 months, this job gave me a lot of self-confidence. I enjoyed working there. At the club, I also met very interesting people who later became my good friends.
Most people judge and criticize sexual work, which I think is wrong. Like the saying “sell your body.” Well, if I carry beer kegs of 30 kg at work now, doesn’t that also mean selling a body? Men are afraid that their daughters will become striptease dancers even though they visit there themselves. Let us not forget that the whole industry is created FOR MEN – FOR MEN. Women are called prostitutes, although in reality they are usually more jealous of trust and think their men will be disappointed. It is every woman’s choice as to how to make bread for herself, and if that doesn’t hurt anyone, why judge?
That’s why I decided to talk about it publicly, even though very few people close to me really know it, but it’s not some stigma or something I should be ashamed of.
– Apparently, such an experience helped to look differently at women, at their bodies, at sexuality. What did this help to understand?
– Of course, in addition to finally falling in love with my body, I understood what sexuality is and I felt sexy myself. Until then, I was very timid, closed, afraid to talk about sex. Everything changed when I moved to Italy. The people there are completely different. Much freer, sex is discussed even at the dinner table, people openly show their feelings on the streets and for me it is very beautiful. Everyone in Lithuania lives with “Happiness and love love silence”, I think there is nothing to be silent here, you need to enjoy it!
Although I still have a great deal of social anxiety and feel very uncomfortable interacting with people and speaking in public, I feel strongly changed and more confident than ever.
I would like other women to discover what makes them feel sexy, gives them self-confidence.
– What in general has helped you to put together values in your life, a look at the world, at yourself?
– I always wanted to be independent, I loved freedom. I never took life too seriously, had no goals to make a career, or have a large family. There is no single model for how we live life. I always wanted to live it in an interesting way, with different experiences and a lot of excitement.
I have always had a strong attitude towards equality and love for all. I’ve always been in favor of tolerance and against discrimination, but I really didn’t like disagreements and anger, which made it better to be silent than to say or be angry about something.
I will not deny that I have mostly looked at the world through pink glasses, sometimes they need to be taken off and face face to face with reality.
I really don’t like inequality and injustice in the world. I want everyone to live in friendship, not get angry, and love each other. For me, the greatest values have always been love, friendship and connection.
Although I was silent, I didn’t have much fear. Ever since I started living in Italy, I have started to travel a lot. For me, the world was insanely fun!
When I was 20, I went to Thailand alone for 2 months, then to India for 5 weeks, then to Morocco, etc. Traveling was a liberation for me, it was my favorite activity. Everything I earned was spent on travel. I enjoyed traveling alone because I had complete freedom to do what I wanted. So I got used to being alone and so far I have very few friends.
Later, when I moved to London, everyone was very friendly, wanted to communicate, make friends, but I was never interested in having many acquaintances. I better have two good friends. I really enjoyed London, it gave me a lot of self-confidence. I started with a strip club and later became a beauty salon manager. I had two good friends, we all lived together, and that was enough for me.
While life has yielded both good and painful experiences, after which I really had to take off my pink glasses and face depression, I never lost my positivity.
– Let’s talk about body cult. Why do you think he’s so good? In one post, you defined exactly what BMI is and for whom this number was created, but many are still trying to lose those few pounds …
– If someone is trying to lose those few pounds, there really is nothing wrong. However, this should be because you want it yourself, not the influence of the media and magazines.
I am against measuring health in BMI because it is a 200-year-old, inaccurate calculation developed for mathematical, non-medical purposes. It is illogical because it does not take into account the proportions of bones, fat and muscle. If all people were the same height and weight, we would still all look different. Now if a person has a high BMI, he is immediately written off as obese. I’m not saying obesity isn’t a serious problem, but we delve too little into other diseases of the obese person.
My BMI is also high, but I’ve never been fat. I was bigger than my friends, but certainly not thick. When I went to the gym, I heard I should lose 10 pounds. Why do I have to drop something? I came to exercise, strengthen the body, highlight body lines, not lose weight.
Fat shaming, like skinny shaming, is still present in our society. You never seem to like it. It’s too thick, it’s too thick. Without turning our heads, we threw comments like “how good is it” or “how bad”. My body is not open to any debate. We should not comment on another person’s body.
If you get an unpleasant comment about your body, know that the commentators themselves have more problems than you do. They probably follow blindly and try in every way to fit into the unrealistic frameworks of beauty standards and are unhappy.
– Maybe you have advice on how to love your body as it is?
– We have to stop listening and chasing stupid beauty standards that change every few years and just be what we want to be.
The girls you see on the covers of magazines don’t even look that way on their own. I think that living the way you want and not listening to other people’s opinions is the easiest way to love yourself and self-confidence. For me, self-confidence has more power than beauty.
– The other topic is double standards for men and women. What double standards do you see today?
– I think most women face established stereotypes that they are just housewives and mothers. As if that were the only goal of a woman, as if she were created just for that. If a woman wants only a career, she is rebuked for not having family values, if she chooses both a career and a family, she is rebuked for not spending enough time on the family. And here a man can choose what he wants, we will always respect him for it.
A lonely man is a single man, a lonely woman is an old maid.
Double standards usually start when a child is still unborn. Before you are born, you have two choices – a “pink box” or a “blue box”. Depending on what genitals we have, we will put us in one of these boxes in advance.
Then we will raise girls to be good, beautiful, calm, and boys to be strong and powerful. We will teach girls to be sensitive, compassionate, and boys to hide their feelings, and to be “masculine.” In my opinion, this way of raising children is not only toxic, but can actually traumatize a child’s personality that doesn’t fit or want to fit into those frames. After all, children are born without knowing anything about this world. By raising a boy to be a “real man,” we create a space of toxic masculinity that is very unhealthy. As a result, men are more prone to violence and suicide. It is not feminism that causes problems for men, but toxic masculinity.
– What problems would you raise in Lithuania as requiring a lot of attention?
– Male violence against women, homophobia, a well-established pattern of life and perception of the world, preventing young people from progressing and restricting freedom of choice.
– Where do you think Lithuania is on the road to equal women’s rights?
– I think there really is room for improvement here. As long as we live in a patriarchal society and continue to cross the path to equality, nothing will change. I wish women to remain silent and talk about existing problems and to find ways to solve them. I also want to unite and fight together because we are fighting against patriarchy, not against each other.
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