Also: "What is wrong with white women?" is a question that keeps haunting me and I fear I'll never find an answer. We get some modicum of privilege and it's worth all this suffering? I mean, is that it? It's horrific.
I think about this a lot too, Nia. So far...it seems to me that perhaps yes, it is that. That little island of "it's not SO bad right here" is what we (white women) as a demographic are hanging onto. Maybe it works like this:
We see the daily outplay of toxic patriarchy right here in our faces, and we often hate it (especially when it hurts us directly.) We also see how much worse it is for other people and groups who sustain more explicit damage. Our personal burden seems bad, but what if we had to put up with what "those people" have to put up with? And maybe we see how much worse it is on a societal level too, and how unstoppable it feels.
So a lot of us do the defensive thing we've been taught by that very patriarchy: we fend for ourselves, and ourselves only. We're hurting, and we only know how to tend that personal pain.
That last paragraph kind of encompasses it, doesn't it. We're supposed to fend for ourselves. It's so counter to our culture (I guess?) to understand that the health of our community (nearby and wider) is what really determines our own health, safety, etc., and that of our children. Maybe that's why I like the Rianne Eisler investigation of partnership vs. domination societies. It's a big paradigm thing we're stuck in, but there is another viable paradigm.
This is such a hurdle: remembering, or inventing, that there are other viable paradigms. I always thought imaginative work must be easy, but in fact it requires so many of the things we don't culturally value: connection and the daily work of that, vulnerability, a willingness to fail...
It took a lot of work for me to get past the "lone genius [usually a dude] sitting in a room drinking whiskey turning out fabulous books" mindset of writing. I was definitely brought up with that, and with the idea that everyone should be in service to said lone genius (though in my case it wasn't a dude). When the truth is that writing is the most collaborative work in my life aside from parenting. Most writers seem to be that way, too, at least the ones I know and like, though few seem to talk about it?
Yes, and it's complex, because for me the writing itself requires solitude. Acres of it. Even if I'm not actively writing, I need that background of solitude to hear myself well enough to write later. And also: definitely writing is hugely collaborative. Maybe not constantly so, but those interactive parts are key, and good writing just does not exist without them. Also, like the solitude-background, to write something meaningful outside of my own self, I need to be in a regularly collaborative context. How to live creatively in both of those directions is a constant question.
Everything you write here is exactly on point. I have so much more to say that can only be shared in conversation.
Also: "What is wrong with white women?" is a question that keeps haunting me and I fear I'll never find an answer. We get some modicum of privilege and it's worth all this suffering? I mean, is that it? It's horrific.
I think about this a lot too, Nia. So far...it seems to me that perhaps yes, it is that. That little island of "it's not SO bad right here" is what we (white women) as a demographic are hanging onto. Maybe it works like this:
We see the daily outplay of toxic patriarchy right here in our faces, and we often hate it (especially when it hurts us directly.) We also see how much worse it is for other people and groups who sustain more explicit damage. Our personal burden seems bad, but what if we had to put up with what "those people" have to put up with? And maybe we see how much worse it is on a societal level too, and how unstoppable it feels.
So a lot of us do the defensive thing we've been taught by that very patriarchy: we fend for ourselves, and ourselves only. We're hurting, and we only know how to tend that personal pain.
That last paragraph kind of encompasses it, doesn't it. We're supposed to fend for ourselves. It's so counter to our culture (I guess?) to understand that the health of our community (nearby and wider) is what really determines our own health, safety, etc., and that of our children. Maybe that's why I like the Rianne Eisler investigation of partnership vs. domination societies. It's a big paradigm thing we're stuck in, but there is another viable paradigm.
This is such a hurdle: remembering, or inventing, that there are other viable paradigms. I always thought imaginative work must be easy, but in fact it requires so many of the things we don't culturally value: connection and the daily work of that, vulnerability, a willingness to fail...
Oh my goodness there's an essay in there!
It took a lot of work for me to get past the "lone genius [usually a dude] sitting in a room drinking whiskey turning out fabulous books" mindset of writing. I was definitely brought up with that, and with the idea that everyone should be in service to said lone genius (though in my case it wasn't a dude). When the truth is that writing is the most collaborative work in my life aside from parenting. Most writers seem to be that way, too, at least the ones I know and like, though few seem to talk about it?
Yes, and it's complex, because for me the writing itself requires solitude. Acres of it. Even if I'm not actively writing, I need that background of solitude to hear myself well enough to write later. And also: definitely writing is hugely collaborative. Maybe not constantly so, but those interactive parts are key, and good writing just does not exist without them. Also, like the solitude-background, to write something meaningful outside of my own self, I need to be in a regularly collaborative context. How to live creatively in both of those directions is a constant question.
Oh my gosh YES. The solitude. It's a weird, weird balance.