"Here sweetie, let me help you." During some late night pillow talk with the husband, a familiar topic came up. I have about 7 viable business ideas at any given moment that I think about constantly. But eventually I hit a point when I can't just think about them anymore. I have to actually do something. I have to start taking some risks. This is when I, instead, just stop thinking about them. I let the beautiful ideas drift away into oblivion. "Wow did you do that by yourself?" Then, I come up with another idea. I do extensive research, I might even start making spreadsheets of costs that I expect to incur. Then I start thinking about things that I don't have answers to. What kind of business license do I need? Do I even need a business license? How do I go about packaging this product? Is that something that I outsource? How does one... "outsource?" What happens if I have customer complaints? Do I need to sign up for a service that manages that? Man this seems like a lot. How do I even know it's gonna be worth it? And then, you guessed it - oblivion. *cue next idea "Have your husband call me." Believe it or not, I hadn't actually internalized the avoidance that was becoming part of my creative process until that night during pillow talk. "Come up with an idea, get hyped, start brainstorming, slow down the brainstorming because you're getting into some bumpy water, tell yourself it was never gonna work - you just didn't have the right tools, abandon ship." As the idea floats off into oblivion two things are happening. A) I'm wiring my brain to think that this is part of my process - meaning it's going to happen next time, too - and B) the empowered, strong, and confident woman who passionately sculpted these ideas defaults back to the timid, dependent, static woman that I grew up to be. "You sure you can carry that by yourself?" Does that sound like garbage? Yeah, well it is. It's true though, too, isn't it? That's exactly what I'm doing. The moment I hit something that I don't know how to handle, I give up. I need help. I don't know how. I'll leave business to the businessmen. But isn't that what they want us to do? Isn't that how we were raised? "We" being the collective sisterhood of the modern world? How many times have people assumed that we need help? How many times have people (WOMEN INCLUDED) assumed that we don't know how to use a screw-driver or reset our router? How many times have we been told to pass along information about our home loan, car problems, or sink trap to our father, boyfriend, or husband, because it's obviously more than our frail minds can process? And here's the kicker, ladies - how many times have we believed them? How many times have we let them be right? How many times have we allowed that to be the narrative? And how many times did we not even realize it was happening? How many times did we agree. I thrived on being the cute girl that boys wanted to help. I benefited from that part of sexism. It makes my life easier, right? Not to mention, the extra attention can be nice. This narrative that they feed us - we are frail, weak, dependent - this will be our narrative until we die or until we choose to change it. The ball is in our court, ladies. Are we going to pass it to a man because we think he can dribble it down to the basket with more agility and accuracy and strength than we have? Or are we going to do it ourself? Is it that time of the month? The irony of it all is that I listen to feminist podcasts. I read feminist literature. I wear feminist shirts. I talk the feminist talk. But you can't be raised by a society that treats you as second class and not at least believe it a little bit. So yeah, it's hard to walk to the feminist walk. I want to be like my idols. I want to dream without reservations. I want to show up to meetings and not get walked all over. I literally want this so badly, that I spend hours before meetings studying negotiation tactics. I practice what I'm going to say. I prepare counterarguments and defenses for the points I think will be made. But then I go to the meetings. I am agreeable. I am passive. I am a people pleaser. The others show up and seemingly effortlessly intimidate me into submissiveness through their presence alone. So I retreat to my comfort zone. I can't get pushed down if I'm already on the floor, can I? I can't lose an argument if I just agree, right? I can't change a tire incorrectly if I let two nice strangers do it for me. I can't fail if I don't try. Right? You wouldn't have your job if you weren't so beautiful. So I pretend to try. I pretend that I actually believe I'm capable enough. I pretend that I am strong enough. Bold enough. Smart enough. Just for a while. And then sometimes I actually start to believe it. But it doesn't feel right. It feels good, but it's also anxiety inducing. It's tough to swallow because it goes against everything that has been subliminally forced into my sub-conscious by fluffy, pink, newborn onesies labeled "pretty like mommy" and ads that compare car shopping to wife finding. So instead of facing failure, I find an excuse not to test out the hypothesis that maybe I am strong - because maybe I'm not. And how embarrassing would that be. To believe in yourself - the opposite of what society has taught you to do - only to find out that you're wrong. You actually aren't enough. You should have listened. They were right. Naive little girl. And as cowardice and shameful as this seems, this is the narrative that we've been written into. This is the narrative of the patriarchy, and this is the paradox of feminism. We want to be strong. No. We are strong. We are strong as hell. But we're also scared. So we end up somewhere in the middle, thinking we're probably strong, but too afraid to find out. Putting on a strong facade, but never knowing that what's underneath could be so much greater. Just sit there and look pretty. The men will handle this. I'm obviously not going to sit here and tell you how to overcome this, since I obviously haven't figured it out yet. Rather, I would like to tell you that it is okay to be afraid and out of practice. We haven't all exactly been given the tools to be strong and to fight. But that's the point. And while I would like to just say, "So let's go grab the patriarchy by its balls, sisters," and close up this post, that's not realistic. Fighting back isn't what we were raised to do. It's not what society wants us to do. So yeah, it's going to be scary. People (men and women) are going to get mad. People (men and women) are going to disagree with us. People (men and women) are going to try to keep us where we are. Because everyone is living in a world where this narrative is the predominant one, whether they recognize it or not. But we are strong. We are the daughters of suffragettes. We are the sisters of the revolution. We are the women that will fight back. We are strong. We just don't all know it yet. But guess what? The patriarchy does. That's why it's pushing us down. It's time to woman up, ladies. You're strong. And it's about damn time you realize it. Calm down. No.
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AuthorMady is the host of Shouting About the Silence Podcast and Community. She is by no means a professional writer; she just has a lot of thoughts! Archives
October 2019
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