dreaming of unraveling a thread for good
women & girls deserve more that a shrug
dear sojourners,
yesterday was one of those cold blustery march days. march continuing like a Lion, though gentler Lamb weather came in today. Cherry and Magnolia petals were scattering, the Dogwood buds outside my window refusing to open. Trees in the area are in various stages of leafing, some even still bare. Wind rocked all the boughs and i wondered at Birds, nests close to completion…are they frustrated by the jostling? do they shrug their feathered shoulders and gather freshly dropped twigs and Moss and carry on, instinct working with the flow of the storm? “pay attention,” i think.
i come back to these Beings that surround me for solace knowing they can’t answer my troubling questions. can’t make sense of our humanness for me, yet they always offer something if i listen. why we are so cruel to one another? how are we managing to “advance” with new technology only to utilize it to harm one another? i don’t know how to get my arms around what is coursing in and out of me this week. it is both personal and so much more. universal in the sense that patriarchy has impacted most cultures. patriarchy: a thread i wish i could pull on. pull and pull and pull, unraveling the beliefs that have strangled our humanness for millennia until the power was gone and we could all breathe unrestricted. in and out. feel the pulse of Earth. move with Oceans. sing with Birds. wait and listen to our kindred other Beings for what is next.
what set me off this time? i read a troubling article in New York Times this week: The Online Degradation of Women and Girls That We Meet With a Shrug by journalist Nicolas Kristof. i am fuming, though i shouldn’t be shocked, because as a woman i’ve often faced “lesser than status.” anyway the advances of AI technology allow a face of a woman or girl to be “nudified” and dispersed to porn-sites. this is on top of the other ways female-bodied or female-identifying persons have had images used online without consent. someone could take my profile photo, AI alter it and i could be distributed across the internet, and i wouldn’t even know it. AND THERE IS NO RECOURSE.
in once example Kristof shares, a 14-year old girl is called to the school office and told how her face has been used as a “fake nude” and sent out as porn. here’s an excerpt from the article:
“Fighting tears, feeling violated and humiliated, Francesca stumbled back to class. In the hallway, she said, she passed another group of girls crying for the same reason — and a cluster of boys mocking them.
“‘When I saw the boys laughing, I got so mad,’ Francesca said. ‘After school, I came home, and I told my mom we need to do something about this.’
“Now 15, Francesca started a website about the deepfake problem — aiheeelp.com — and began meeting state legislators and members of Congress in an effort to call attention to the issue.”
this is not okay. deepfakes. revenge porn. use of nude photos without consent, any it. and yet our society devalues female-identified individuals through actions and words (yes, this technology has been used on boys and men too—often call sexplotation—but 99% are girls and women.) the lack of collective outrage says it all. even after Taylor Swift was “deepfaked,” the temporary pearl-clutching subsided and we are back to inaction. i can also see this also being used to harm gender-fluid folks…anyone who those in power want to silence into submission.
how have we allowed our (predominantly) boys and men to think that watching these images (many of which are violent) is okay? again in Kristof’s article:
“The impunity reflects a blasé attitude toward the humiliation of victims. One survey found that 74 percent of deepfake pornography users reported not feeling guilty about watching the videos.”
in our society female bodies are dehumanized. that or sanctified. anything but allowed to be a fully evolving human beings with hopes, dreams, passions, faults, needs, desires, etc.
please, please read the article (i think it is behind a paywall, but use a guest request if you need to or send me a comment and i’ll see if i can send it as a “gift.” i can gift 10 articles per month.) it is worth passing along. monitor your kids online usage. demand social media websites redirect their search engines away from these sites. raise a ruckus. because we each deserve to have a healthy appreciation for our bodies. for our gendered ways of being in the world. our sexuality. to not be afraid that a doctored image of us or someone we care about is out in the world being used for perverse gratification. that a person will find out and not have the emotional bandwidth to handle it and chose self-harm due to unjustified shame.
this rolls into a larger topic as to how do i exist as a female in this western influenced culture. how do any of us that are identifying as female?
i would call myself a quiet feminist. i’m not a rabble-rouser. and what definition of feminist to use? which wave? i’m not conversant in the waves, so not able to answer that. i use “quiet” in that i do my best to support rights of female-identified individuals and have extended that to queer, non-binary, and other gender-identified folks. still learning what all that encompasses. it is constantly evolving. i think i am getting it sorted and then i see where the influence of capitalism or colonialism or patriarchy clouds my beliefs. teasing out my own journey of self-acceptance and my worth from the bill-of-goods i’ve been sold skews my perception. if you’re confused right now, it’s because i am. perhaps you have some insights from your own journey you can share?
let me try and unpack the confusion with a wee bit of personal history. i inhabit a female body. my being a female has been denigrated in business settings, religious leadership roles, school, and social contexts as second class over and over and over. touched or propositioned inappropriately. told to wait my turn. men being chosen first because they “were more qualified.” talked over. you are likely familiar with the list. and i’m white-bodied. i know it is worse for folks of color.
my father was a dear at championing me. a good father. we were close. but there were things he saw as appropriate freedoms for my older brother, but not his “little girl.” he was “protective,” wanting to keep me safe, though never told me from what. a conversation…multiple conversations, would have been helpful, right?
in my younger years i was what the Sears catalog sizing called “chubby.” a label that still stings 55+ years later. some outfits i yearned for not available in “that size.” it didn’t take me long to figure out that i could sculpt my body through weight gain and loss to garner the attention i did or did not want. i went on my first diet at age 13. the religion i belonged to saw women in black and white terms: saint or slut. temptress who brought on all the world’s ails. and sex was never discussed in my home…so left it up to the college dorms to educate me. my all girl dorm would thumb through playboy and penthouse magazines (yes,ironic) to educate ourselves i suppose on what men wanted (this was wrongly assuming we were all “straight.”) we would laugh at the “true” sex stories but the images seared in my mind. how to measure up.
it takes work to shift beliefs…those deeply held beliefs about one’s worth. about one’s intellect, heart, body. after recently reading some other Substacks (
, are two in particular that have resonated) i’ve had some aha moments as long-laid sequestered “stuff” toward my own body issues has stirred. i’ve been writing about these in my journal and at a recent writing workshop i attended. this newer acceptance that still has room to grow includes gazing at and loving my own body, unclothed in its crone years. this is a huge breakthrough (and vulnerable confession.)in raising my daughter, i promised myself i would never make a negative comment about her body. affirm her for expansive qualities of wit, kindness, curiosity and intellect. i may not of have been perfect, but i tried, knowing there would be enough outside influences vying for her attention. for my son i tried to take a similar tack, for our body image issues are growing among males, too. where there is a market to exploit…
stepping away from the personal for a moment, let’s touch on how women are treated when they are successful under the capitalist paradigm. i read an excellent Substack by Laurie Stone on Martha and Barbara, (Stewart and Streisand.) how these two strong women were/are torn down because, female. Laurie dissects an interview journalist Mike Wallace does with Barbara with questions that are demeaning. questions that would never be asked of a male interviewee. and, ugh, sometimes other women do the deed of breaking down each other. (
mentions this in her recent Substack, “you don’t know me well enough to ask that!”)and Martha, well, i remember thinking when she was convicted of her white-collar crimes, “where are all the men who have done the same thing?” i knew she was being made an example to other women to “watch out. you don’t belong in our club.” and though i am about as opposite of Martha Stewart as anyone out there, i say “yay you for your comeback.”
women in our society are told that we have just about “cracked the glass ceiling.” but that is an illusion. when a woman does reach those upper echelons of power (and i have “thoughts” about systems of power, but won’t go there today,) if they “act like a man” they are not “feminine” enough. if they embody their femininity, they are “too soft.” there is no “right way” to be female in a man’s world.
when women display power in our culture, the culture will punish them.
as i mentioned earlier, patriarchy is so ingrained in many cultures, it is difficult to pick up a strand and tug on it and not see how it is connected.
had a reflection a while back on this, Patriarchy is bad for men, too, that i recommend. and wanting to see the demise of patriarchy is not the equivalent of “hating men.” quite the opposite actually. it would be freeing for all but those who cling to it with clenched fists.part of my quandary is as i embrace loving myself and want to support other female-identified and non-binary humans on their journey, i still live engulfed in our current culture. deciding how to present myself outwardly in a way that aligns with my inward being is exhausting. i do look at others and compare myself (ugh). try not to judge others (ugh when i do.) i return to Birds, Trees, River, Moss, etc because there is no judgment toward one another or me. grounds me and gets me out of my head…a least for a while.
when loving myself as an embodied female, i want to feel free to move in this body in healthy, sensuous ways. wild ways because i am after all, animal. and my desire is that other genders would have that same freedom available. and yet, the gaze and judgment of our culture is so entangled with my beliefs. i dreamed the other night that i was walking through a park naked as some “properly clothed” folks came upon me. i dropped to my belly to crawl as i couldn’t find the scarf i had brought with me to cover up. i couldn’t find a place to hide. this seems to be roiling at a deep level.
where do values imposed by millennia of institutionalized morality need to fall away and something more generous need to emerge from the compost. i reflect on the Greek and Roman myths and note that these male-oriented gods stories of power and control dominate the narratives. they are often fickle and uncaring. the goddesses tend to manipulate, be pawns, or act out of vengeance to achieve their desired result. they are tricked or foolish. this isn’t true across the board, but enough. anyway, these myths influenced the philosophers and thinkers that laid the grounding of our western cultural identity. it is time to rewrite the myths as they no longer serve us. gratefully some folks are taking these myths on, after all, myths are not meant to be stagnant.
did i warn you i would be all over the place in this post? perhaps i am as scattered as the Magnolia petals after yesterday’s storm. we have a generation of young folks being raised on social media. inundated with images of “perfection.” even male-bodied persons are not sheltered from the need to be “liked” by tapping into a certain trend. i am concerned about our young folk.
to reengage with our wild bodies as they are. to fall in love with ourselves. to raise the next generation with an appreciation for themselves as a Being not based on false AI images or the latest influencer, but to be able to settle into the rhythm of Earth, Ocean, Birds and find value in being a Being in this wider community. is it possible?
i have barely touched on my own history. there is so much more to say…about being nice, or about avoiding hard conversations because trying to be too kind, and and and…things that are valued because i am in this female body. that will need to wait for another post.
i’m sure you have your own stories. what do you think? what are you pondering? in this all over the place post, what has come up for you? i’d love to hear your thoughts.
and because even when i’m frustrated, fuming and wanting to crawl back into the dark cocoon of winter, where i feel sheltered, i seem to find closing with something uplifting helps me, so from
‘s Substack where she shares a quote from Weathering, by Ruth Allen (a book i will be getting after i move!):“Deep listening is a willingness to put aside our preconceptions and move inwards. It requires a hearing-heart that can always be surprised.”
“Listening is how we love better.”
i want be surprised. i know that is the way to dream and engage with these tangled threads.
and please, surprise me the comments.
i’m listening. i want to love better.
thank you for hanging with me today.
in gratitude,
anne
Thank you for this…all of it. I’m going to read the Kristoff article for sure. It is all so unsettling and I’m glad thoughtful people like you help us to process. xN
Thank you for the mention. And thank you for such a personal and thoughtful post. There is so much to think about here. The deep listening really struck a chord. For me that correlates with sitting with feelings that come up and being quiet around them, ignoring any initial feelings of fear and listening for the quiet truths underneath. I wish you luck with your unraveling of threads xx