Daughter (image by AJ Lee)
There’s a reason people call menstruation “the curse.”
I am one of two sisters in a family full of women. I went to an all-girls school and was told repeatedly, both explicitly and implicitly, that I could do and be anything I wanted. I went to a college at university famous for its deep connections to the women’s suffrage movement at the turn of the 20th Century. My childhood was made up of Margaret Thatcher, Little Women, Working Girl, “ladettes”, Emily Dickinson, Pretty Woman, Oprah Winfrey, Kate Moss, Tina Turner, Britney Spears, Monica Lewinsky, “Jordan” and Ab Fab. Through this confusing jumble of influences one thing always seemed clear: we were headed in the right direction.
Yes, there was “heroin chic” and Wonderbra ads and glass ceilings. Yes, a boyfriend at university told me my legs were a 7 out of 10 and I had “the fourth best bum in college” (a back-sided complement, if you will.) When I started work at a global law firm at age 22, senior solicitors would sift through the photos of potential trainees to pick the “fit girls” to sit in their rooms and only invite my male counterparts to the post-dinner client entertainment, doing business between lap dances. Throughout my twenties, I read horrifying articles about women around the world being subject to child marriage, female circumcision, honor killings and ongoing oppression, while men at Western dinner parties scoffed that female athletes could really expect to earn equal pay, because “let’s face it, no one wants to watch them play.”
But, at least where I lived, women had the vote. We could work. We had contraception. We had the morning after pill. We could decide if and when we became mothers. Burning bras was bandied around as a whimsical anecdote from the past, and contemporary magazine articles focused instead on exploring if it was possible — in this post-feminist utopia — for us to “have it all” (and by “having it all” they meant juggling a full time, impressive job alongside parenting, volunteering, exercising, caring for aging parents and maintaining interesting hobbies that show you have depth, all while keeping your face taut, your tits bouncy and trying not to be labelled “a nag” for wanting an equal division of labor at home.)
Everyday sexism aside, I was smug in my white, privileged complacency that progress would march on. The trials of women cast out for choosing their own desires over social expectations in novels I loved to read on holiday, like The Pursuit of Love, seemed from a bygone era. Never, not for one moment, did I imagine that I would live to see a world in which a daughter of mine would have less rights to bodily autonomy and, therefore, equality than me.
And yet, of course, the fight was never over. Equality was an illusion — scratch the surface and it disappeared. As a result of the onset of the pandemic in 2020, nearly 2 million women were forced out of the American workforce due to a heady combination of pay inequity, lack of childcare and societal pressure. With Roe vs Wade being overturned in the US last month, abortion clinics are shutting down across the States with tragic impact on millions of women, kids and families — from underage rape victims seeking a chance at life after trauma, to middle-aged moms needing to safely survive miscarriages that affect 10-15% of all pregnancies. It is abundantly clear that women are still a terrifying threat to men in power who will stop at nothing — hypocrisy, faux piousness, violence — to strip us of our rights in whatever way they can: whether it be by making life-saving healthcare illegal in the US, or denying access to education and employment in Afghanistan.
Women’s incumbent ability to grow babies is a curse — and I say that as a mum or two kids that I love more than life itself. As soon as puberty starts, the Damocles sword of potential pregnancy hangs over every female’s head, whether they are deemed “adult” under the law or not. It dictates how we act and threatens to disrupt life as we know it at any point. ‘Slut’ or ‘not slut’: those are your options. It’s even captured in scripture — I bet the disciples were laughing when they came up with the Virgin Mary, the most iconic misogynistic loophole ever: thank God for divine intervention allowing Mary to skip over the dirty business of sex (slut!) and fast track into what I’m sure we can all agree is a much more respectable pursuit for any woman… motherhood.
The fun doesn’t stop there. Once we become pregnant — by choice or otherwise — society then has carte blanche to treat women as second citizens. Not just in the eyes of fervent anti-abortion campaigners, but in the very bones of systems that are supposed to support everyone, equally. The rate of maternal mortality in America is 17.4 per 100,000 pregnancies (and that rate is 2.5 times higher for Black women), ranking the US the as the last place you want to become a mom among industrialized countries; and that doesn’t even touch on the lack of parental leave or ongoing child support once you get out of hospital. We might as well all go get our daughters a red cape and white bonnet to be presented on the first day they get their period, and be done with it.
The flip side of all this heaviness is the incredible strength, humor and resilience I witness everyday in women around me, women I couldn’t live without. Running businesses, creating art, raising children, writing books, leading teams, running miles, getting elected, providing therapy, offering support, cooking feasts, mixing cocktails, teaching skills, learning languages, saving lives, receiving awards, surviving trauma, swimming in lakes and freezing seas, giving birth, leaving bad relationships behind, making money, building houses, having miscarriages and abortions, getting through it, laughing at themselves, cracking me up, and providing life-shaping love in myriad forms to kids, partners, lovers, families, friends.
I see my daughter who is fierce and funny. She is 4 years old, with tangled curls that she hates me to brush, eyelashes as long as a donkey’s and — as Douglas Adams would say — a brain the size of a planet. She loves to tell stories and dance dramatically while singing “chicken soup with rice.” She could be the next Tina Fey or the next AOC. She could be a teacher, a gardener, a doctor. Who knows. What I do know is that she deserves to choose what becomes of her life, just as much as my son.
So, what’s to be done? First and foremost, there are practical ways that we can and should support safe and legal abortions in the US — speak to you representatives, donate to organizations that support abortion and reproductive health like Planned Parenthood, march to make your voice heard.
Beyond that, I believe the only thing to do is fight, constantly. This judgement is a wake up call to everyone like me who thought we could never go back, to every woman and any person that supports equality. Rights must be fought for — the ones you’ve lost, the one’s you deserve, and even the ones you have. Worse than any period cramp, complacency is a curse.
From this point on I am personally committing to never again let anyone tell me that the gender equality fight is over. To never let my loved ones think it is over. Even if we win back the legal right to abortion in every one of the 50 states of the United States, the fight is not over; they will always come back for more. No matter how many wins or losses, we must always vote and support candidates who stand for the right to choose and for equality. If we can and have the fortitude for it, we must run for office to stand up for those rights. We must demand that businesses who can afford to offer healthcare do so for all their employees, including access to reproductive healthcare. Abortion is healthcare. We must talk at home about the struggle — past and ongoing — that women face to have an equal chance at independence and equal pay, and the role in which sex and pregnancy and abortion play in that struggle. We should not avoid this topic because it is too awkward, or political, or sensitive. Actually, we should encourage our kids to get angry, because that’s what it will take. And we must never take for granted that any rights are set in stone in any country where we live.
This is a weird post — veering wildly off of my usual topics, and I plan to get back to celebrating creativity and creative souls very soon. But these are weird times. In short:
Women are cursed.
Cursed to be strong and brilliant and funny and supportive.
We are an army of warriors all over the world.
We bleed so you can live.
And we owe it to all the daughters in our lives to fight like our lives depend on it, because they always do.
Back on message: Upstate Art Weekend is next weekend! I hope to see many of you soaking up culture in beautiful spots across the Hudson Valley. Shout out to its courageous and innovative founder Helen Toomer — a powerhouse for art in the region.
YOUR LEGS ARE 10/10, SHEESH!
Fight fight fight xx
I love this and love you. May Tilly and Grace be the warriors we are raising them to be. Fight on.