Being a Southern Belle is completely unrealistic

100 years after we have moved on from plantations, slavery, Jim Crow laws, and horse and buggies, one idea from the old South somehow still persists today: the quintessential Southern Belle. Unfortunately, if I’ve learned anything from my nineteen-almost-twenty years that I’ve spent in the south it’s this: being a Southern Belle is unrealistic (as is monogamy… according to Amy Schumer).

A Southern Belle, for those of you who are miraculously unaware of this ideal for Southern females, is rich, perfectly put together, quaint and well mannered, and demonstrates the epitome of that well known “southern charm”. But I’ll say it again: being a Southern Belle is unrealistic.

The main two features of a Southern Belle is that she is rich and well put together. Being rich just kind of happens, so the bigger issue is with this idea of being “well put together”, with not a hair out of place. To the person who came up with this expectation I ask, have you ever heard of humidity? Or experienced a summer in the South? The average July temperature for Texas cities ranges from 95 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. A “cold” July day is probably around 90 degrees. If you spend more than 30 seconds outside you will be drenched in sweat. No amount of antiperspirant will save you.

As far as the humidity? There’s a reason that the ponytail and high bun have been “in” for years now, and it’s because when it’s humid in the summer there is absolutely nothing else you can do with your hair. Not. A. Thing.

It’s also quite hard to be put together when you’re being eaten by bugs. And yes, I mean literally eaten. Two days into my camp counselor job, I have roughly ten bug bites. Four of them I sustained within a 15 minute time period. One week into camp, my bug bite total has written to roughly twenty, though I actually remain one of the least bitten counselors. So those cute little sweet tea parties on the porch as the sun goes down? The only ones who enjoy those are the aforementioned bugs, as they’ve never seen so much food and sugar in their life.

We’re also either too busy or too lazy to put the hours of time and effort into making sweet tea. Hot tea, in hot weather, takes hours, if not days, to cool down. If I want sweet tea, I’m getting a cup of it the size of my face (because they don’t come any smaller than that) from a fast food place, and I’m not inviting friends over because it’s so sweltering they’re not going to leave their pool for lots of sugar and bugs.

In addition, Belles are expected to be pale as can be, and to protect their porcelain skin from the harsh sunlight with parasols. As of at least 15 years ago, both being pale and using parasols have gone out of fashion. The new thing is to be “tan and tasty” according to the Zoom Tan ad that keeps coming up on my Spotify.

Let’s also not forget how Southern Belles came about: a cute little fun southern thing called #racism. Southern Belles were the wives and daughters of plantation owners. If you fell asleep in history class, plantations had slaves. The reason Southern Belles sat on their porches and drank tea was because their slaves were doing all of their work. Their slaves were making their tea. Their slaves would be in charge of keeping the sweat at bay, and killing the bugs.

We’re leaving slavery in the past, so why not leave this ideal for southern women in the past as well?