I am NOT Mary Jane Pt. 3

One of my Facebook friends recently posted the following status:
Is it just me or does this bother anybody else? The 2 most popular, black female characters on TV, "Scandal" and "Being Mary Jane," are both young, attractive, intelligent, successful women and are having affairs with married men.

If you read my last post (and, hopefully, you did), you found that I considered myself to be somewhat of a hypocrite. Here's why. I love Scandal but despise Being Mary Jane. Nonsensical, right?  I started writing the first "I am NOT Mary Jane" post and at that moment, I realized my hate for the main character, Mary Jane, and my praise of Scandal's Olivia Pope. The problem lies in the fact that they are one and the same. They're both mistresses, sidechicks, and homewreckers who pretty much flaunt their relationships in the faces of the wives of the married men that they're doing.

My problem with Mary Jane lies in what she represents to the young women in my culture. She represents limits. No matter how beautiful or successful you may be, as a black woman, you don't get your own piece of the American dream in terms of marriage. There's a limit and we must share. This limit decreases our self worth and makes us devalue ourselves. You can't participate in a three way relationship and love yourself wholeheartedly. And that is the image that Mary Jane portrays, and that is the image that I can't endorse for our young girls. Hell, even our older women. That is why I despise the phrase, "I am Mary Jane." It translates to "I am low self-esteem" and "I am a woman who does not know her worth." If you knew your worth, you would know that you deserve your own in this world. You would know that sharing is reserved for recipes or pieces of clothing with your close girlfriend, not men. 

So why do I love Scandal so much? There's no one more accomplished than Olivia Pope. She has her own firm in which she fixes the lives of some if the most important people in the world, including the Leader of the Free World. Problem is she's also doing him. Before I started writing these "I am NOT Mary Jane posts," I saw nothing wrong with Ms. Pope's affair with the President because I believed in their love. I felt both were in love and he just couldn't get out of his situation. With Mary Jane, I felt that she was just the mistress and her guy was playing her. Now that I've given thought to both situations, I realize they're one in the same. Olivia shares, therefore she doesn't value herself 100%. It's hard for me to say that because everyone knows she is one tough cookie. However, she's not too tough to demand respect from her lover who treats her as a booty call in some episodes and walk away from this detrimental relationship. Remember that episode where the President treated her like his whore in that closet when he was mad at her? Ouch. 

I found this meme on the web. Encompasses this whole post.

I'm a much bigger hypocrite than I thought. Why? Because I faithfully tune in to Love and Hip Hop (and all other ratchet shows, such as Basketball Wives and Real Housewives of Atlanta). It should really be titled "I Have Low Self-Esteem and Hip Hop." What this show represents to our culture is horrendous. Our expectation of life becomes three-way relationships, throwing bottles (or the closest item you can get your hands on) and fighting as a means to conflict resolution, and no thoughts given to what our current actions mean to the future. This is leading to a whole other post.....

Bottom line, I am NOT Mary Jane nor am I Olivia Pope. I am NOT these Love and Hip Hop women either. I know my worth. I know my value. I love myself. I'm going to do what I can to make sure that other young women realize their power as well.