“The Stain” and the end of Roe has got me thinking about all I experienced and never considered abuse, but accepted as my lot as a female. From boys to men, from crude jokes in grade school to intimidation and threats for sex in high school, in college—“You can live with me, if you don’t have stinky farts like my mother”—through sexual harassment at work and 33 years of isolation in marriage, my body now broken and scarred. The shame I carried, from age 3 when an unknown man at a family party put me in a garbage can after I cringed away from his demand for a kiss. At 11, when a boy I barely knew suddenly punched me so hard in my breast, that side never developed. At 17, when a cigarette-smoking, male gynecologist told me I “could spit babies like watermelon seeds,” which was such a lie. Yesterday I read an article about the Ballerina Farm, where an influencer tradwife caring for 8 children has suffered a physical and mental breakdown from exhaustion. How happy I am, now, old and at home with only adult daughters. How much more enjoyable life is, without the threat of my sex, where we women can just BE. And I realize, now, it wasn’t me who ever needed to feel shame. I only wish I’d known to decenter from men long before this.
“The Stain” and the end of Roe has got me thinking about all I experienced and never considered abuse, but accepted as my lot as a female. From boys to men, from crude jokes in grade school to intimidation and threats for sex in high school, in college—“You can live with me, if you don’t have stinky farts like my mother”—through sexual harassment at work and 33 years of isolation in marriage, my body now broken and scarred. The shame I carried, from age 3 when an unknown man at a family party put me in a garbage can after I cringed away from his demand for a kiss. At 11, when a boy I barely knew suddenly punched me so hard in my breast, that side never developed. At 17, when a cigarette-smoking, male gynecologist told me I “could spit babies like watermelon seeds,” which was such a lie. Yesterday I read an article about the Ballerina Farm, where an influencer tradwife caring for 8 children has suffered a physical and mental breakdown from exhaustion. How happy I am, now, old and at home with only adult daughters. How much more enjoyable life is, without the threat of my sex, where we women can just BE. And I realize, now, it wasn’t me who ever needed to feel shame. I only wish I’d known to decenter from men long before this.
None of the gift links appear to be working for me? For each, I’m getting a blank white page with the usual “Done” at top left. Is it me, or—?
Very strange, Knitwish. Everything seems OK on my end, but who knows? Let me email you the gift links and see if that works.