But striving to be the Official Woman is a learned practice. This means we can unlearn it.
I began the process of unlearning this sexism when I went to university. It wasn’t just that I took up gender studies, although that certainly helped in providing me with a framework to talk about issues that had always bothered me but for which I lacked the language. It wasn’t that I discovered my male friends from that time were terrible human beings. They weren’t, and I still value their impact on my life today. What helped me was discovering the transformative power of female friendship, and the importance of having a good girl gang in your life. The girlfriends I made in those early days of tertiary education remain my friends today. We’ve grown up together, stayed out late together, got drunk and silly together, fought and made up with each other and shared almost two decades worth of emotions.
It wasn’t until after I rejected that ideology that I realised just how suffocating it was to perform the role of Official Woman. When you measure your value based on how proficiently you validate men’s behaviour and flatter their intellects, you cannot help but live in a mild state of fear that you might make a mistake one day. This stereotype of hierarchical power in friendships is often ascribed to women, but I’ve found that the true model of the girl gang is as far removed from this pattern of jealousy and recrimination as you can possibly get.
As I write this, I’ve just completed a two-week residency at Varuna, a writers’ retreat in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. While not specifically for lady writers, I was fortunate to spend my time there in what turned out to be a female-only space. I lived with six other extraordinary women, all of them writing vastly different things but with whom an intimacy was quickly and organically established. Our paths sometimes crossed during the day, a warm word shared here and there while making tea in the kitchen, but we mostly worked in comfortable solitude. At night, we’d gather in the dining room for hearty meals prepared by Sheila, a glamorous octogenarian who’s been providing evening sustenance to writers there for the past twenty years. Unlike our brief daytime interactions, these dinnertime conversations were rich and expansive. Each day, we’d enter that space with new stories, writing triumphs or frustrations we were eager to discuss or seek advice on and questions about each other’s progress. It didn’t take long before we were sharing our own secret histories with one another. In the final week, we began practising what Mag called ‘the five joys’. Over dessert, we’d share five of the moments or thoughts that had brought us joy that day. Without fail, each of us would mention something to do with the others – either the support we felt we were receiving, the happiness that came from having participated in a particular conversation or simply the privilege we all felt at being there in each other’s company. These were intimacies that could only have been shared in this particular dynamic, with women left free to be themselves in supportive company. And while there are one or two men I can think of who would have done a fine job of slotting in, the particular intimacies shared between women still remain distinct. That is a rarity that’s not only valuable but worth fighting for.
On my final evening at Varuna, when almost everyone else had left, I walked with Mag and Anna to watch the sun set at the nearby Three Sisters lookout. Although I had known them for only a fortnight, I felt strongly connected to them both. As the waning sun turned the mountains a burnt orange, we hiked down to one of the Sisters and took in the awe-inspiring view of the land beyond. The vastness of it seemed a good metaphor for how much space and intensity we had covered with each other in such a short time. When we arrived home later, we decided it was a ‘dinner in the kitchen’ kind of night, and this too seemed to signify something special. Kitchen tables are where friends and family say farewell to formalities and congregate comfortably and without artifice, and that’s exactly what we had come to feel like – family. When the morning came, I was sad to say goodbye. But as with any family member, I knew it wouldn’t be forever.
I love the company of women. Given a choice, I probably value it more than the company of men. But where once no one batted an eyelid when I said the same thing of male friendship, now I’m made to feel strange or hostile when the situation is reversed. Being effusive about my fondness for women turns me into a man-hater or a shrew. Some people treat me with suspicion, or feel the need to urge me to reconsider. I’m entreated to admit that men are wonderful, even when the only thing I’ve said is that I think women are great. Even the act of asking a man not to just assume he can join a group of women is seen as subversive, as if we only come to life when a man is there to talk to us. In fact, it’s my experience that women are more likely to shrink than we are to expand when men are present. This doesn’t necessarily mean that men are wilfully oppressing us. In all honesty, they’re probably not even aware it happens. But as with so many things, what is once seen cannot be unseen – and I have watched as even I, le boner killer extraordinaire, subconsciously adapt and modify my behaviour or conversation when confronted with the possibility that a man might find it inaccessible or dull. Spending time with women is therefore not only necessary to give one pleasure, it becomes a vital salve against the invasive restriction of constantly existing as the Other. I think of these moments of resistance as akin to Roald Dahl’s gathering of witches. In the safety of our own covens, here we can all stand and whip off the bindings that hide our various layers from the world, scratch the itch of suffocated scalps and look at each other with honest eyes.
Listen to me when I tell you this, because it might be the most important thing in this whole book: the best thing you can do for your self-esteem, your sanity, your sense of accomplishment, your happiness and your inner strength is to find yourself a solid girl gang.
Instead of feeling judged by my girlfriends, I find relief in their company. They make me feel safe and supported, because they don’t respond to my shared experiences of being a woman with the suggestion that I might be exaggerating or imagining things. Their reciprocal stories make me feel validated amid a narrative which still wants women to believe we are overly sensitive and humourless. When we are together, we have each other’s backs against whatever obstacle or Neanderthal might be blocking our paths. With the support of my different girl gangs, I feel stronger and more equipped to live freely and confidently in the world as I choose to rather than according to the outdated, gendered ideas of womanhood which reinforce the comfort of men.
I promise you that if you give yourself over to relationships with good women and allow them into your heart, your feelings of value and positivity will skyrocket. I don’t mean women who treat you like shit or bully you or make you feel like every moment with them is a competition you didn’t sign up to participate in. I mean the kinds of women who’ll listen to you without judgment when you’re baring your soul, who’ll hold your hair back when you vomit after too much booze, who’ll have your back when you tell a guy to leave you alone at the pub, who’ll sing loud songs with you while stumbling down the streets at night, who’ll drop everything to take off on a girls’ weekend to get high and watch Magic Mike, who’ll always tell you you’re a hot babe, who’ll listen to you when you speak and really hear what you’re saying, and who will, above all, let you know through their love and kindness that you matter and that you mean something.
If you have a girl gang, you’ll never be alone. The world can be hard and unforgiving for us women, but with a girl gang by your side you will build with them a barricade. It will act as your protection, your fortress and your castle, and your enemies will never be able to tear it down, no matter how hard they try. Find your Steel Magnolias, the Thelma to your Louise, your own Broad City and a League of Your Own. Find it and never let it go.
To the members of my girl gangs, I love you all. Thank you for saving my life by loving me back.
____________
* I am required by law to state that this is a joke. There will be no male slaves in the matriarchy because there will be no men. This is also a joke, and
must be outlined as such otherwise the internet’s resident man-babies will take this line and use it as incontrovertible proof that I am indeed conspiring to kill all men and establish matriarchal order. But such a mammoth task would be impossible in my lifetime, so all I can do is hide instructions in the hivemind so the next generation can fulfil my destiny. That was a joke too.
–
6 –
ARE YOU MY MOTHER?
When I was twenty-five, I got knocked up.
Twice.
Both of these pregnancies were unexpected and both were decidedly unwanted. My reasons for this were pretty standard, but they all basically boiled down to the fact that it seemed unwise to bring a small infant into the world when I still had little to no idea how to navigate it myself. What if I forgot to feed it? I barely knew how to feed myself, evidenced by the fact dinner for me regularly consisted of a bag of fancy potato chips, a bottle of wine and an episode of Survivor.
It wasn’t just the inability to navigate nutrition that concerned me. There was also the fact of my dearth of prospects. At the time of Pregnancy No. 1, I was only barely out of university and still not entirely sure as to the status of my graduation, i.e. had I actually qualified for one. (Note: this is still uncertain. Adelaide University, please advise.) I was living on a combination of Newstart payments and pocket money gleaned from the three hours a day I worked making lunches in a rickety old vegetarian cafe in Adelaide. While my then-boyfriend and I were in love, it’s fair to say that the riches of this alone wouldn’t put food on the table or shoes on the feet of our progeny.
Instead of feeling a connection to the cells dividing inside me, I felt nothing but anxiety and fear at the thought of what might happen if this biological process went unchecked. I knew that being pregnant was different to being a mother. I also knew that while I didn’t want to be in the first situation, I wanted even less to be in the second. A thing was growing inside me, and I wanted it out as soon as possible.
So contemplating abortion wasn’t especially difficult. I had been raised knowing that abortion was a woman’s right. This word ‘knowing’ is important. It wasn’t an opinion, as if there was room for debate around the topic. In my family, it’s always been an acceptance of fact that matters of reproduction and birth are the business of nobody but the woman involved. No one could tell her what she should and shouldn’t do with her uterus, especially not someone who would never be in the position of finding that happily vacant lot suddenly and unexpectedly slapped with a planning permit for a house that would take eighteen years to build and require a lifetime of sacrifice.
‘Girls,’ my parents reassured us, ‘if one of you ever comes home pregnant, you don’t have to be afraid to tell us. We’ll support you no matter what you decide to do – but you should probably get an abortion because you’re only sixteen and you have your whole life ahead of you.’ (The latter half of this message was usually reiterated by my dad, whose biggest nightmare seemed to be having his daughters ‘throw their lives away’ on a two-minute roll in the hay.)
Being suddenly thrust into the reality of an unwanted pregnancy only strengthened my belief in the freedom of reproductive choices. Even in the early days of my first pregnancy, before I’d seen a doctor and when suspicion and intuition were all I had to go on, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I was going to ‘get rid of it’. It was a choice that never caused any particular kind of distress or conflict within me. At twenty-five, all I had were my dreams and aspirations. I knew what I wanted my life to look like (sort of), but I was still trying to figure out how I could get there. I wanted to be independent. I wanted to achieve a measure of success that satisfied me. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be a mother one day, but I wanted it to be when I had something of substance to offer a child. I wanted to be supported by a partner, and not necessarily financially (although there’s no denying that if we want new mothers to be primary caretakers in at least the first few months of a child’s life, we also have to accept that those mothers need financial assistance). And more than anything, I wanted to know that parenting had been a choice made on my terms. I believe that all people with the biological capacity to bear children have the right to make that choice, primarily because pregnancy is such an invasive and overwhelming experience. We require consent for all other medical procedures, particularly if it involves the use of our bodies by another person. Why is pregnancy treated differently, just because fundamentalists have created an easy moral narrative around the supposed innocence of life in the womb?
The decision was made. I consulted with my parents and booked myself in for a termination. When it was over, I felt nothing but relief – psychological relief over the fact I had been saved and instant physical relief from the horrendous cocktail of pregnancy hormones that had been wreaking havoc on my body and mind. I was free.
I was free.
This would normally be the point where I’d feel obliged to offer an explanation. You know the kind. I was too young. We were in love, but it wasn’t enough. I wish things could have been different. I think about it every day. I’m not going to do this though because: a) none of that is true, and b) it’s nobody’s business. Too many women feel like we owe explanations to strangers for the whys and wherefores of our reproductive medical choices, but we don’t. In fact, I think the only explanation anyone else is entitled to is: ‘This is my choice and I don’t care what you think about it.’
Refusing to justify your reproductive choices to anyone is a brazenly political act. The attacks on women’s bodies extend far beyond just the matter of abortion, and it’s well past time we stopped lending our support to this intrusion. With regard to abortion in particular, the tactics used by extremists range from spreading false propaganda to demonisation and even criminal attacks on individuals and organisations. As far as I’m concerned, these people are terrorists waging a war against women and our fundamental right to be in charge of our own bodies and destinies, and I will not negotiate with terrorists by operating within their own arbitrary, misogynist set of rules.
But it isn’t just extremists who force women to justify their behaviour. There are people who consider themselves pro-choice who do this too; people who may not even realise that they’ve created a checklist of requirements that women must fulfil if we want to claim the right to control our own bodies. You’ve probably heard some of these before. Hell, you might have even said some of them.
‘I’m pro-choice, but women shouldn’t be allowed to have more than one abortion. Haven’t they heard of contraception?’
‘I’m pro-choice, but I think there are too many women who consider it the easy way out.’
‘I’m pro-choice, but only in circumstances where the woman has been raped or there’s something wrong with the baby.’
‘I’m pro-choice, but I think too many women have too many abortions.’
‘I’m pro-choice, but married women have no reason to have an abortion.’
‘I’m pro-choice, but I think abortion is too readily available.’
‘I’m pro-choice, but not when women use it as a form of contraception.’
What all of these really translate to is: ‘I’m pro-choice, but only in situations where I am allowed to dictate the moral terms of reference.’
To my mind, a truly pro-choice position is one that’s pro-choice regardless of the reasons. If I don’t want to carry a pregnancy to term and become a mother, it shouldn’t matter if that pregnancy was the result of the worst kind of thing a man can do (i.e. violently assault and rape a woman) or the result of the worst kind of thing a woman can do (have consensual sex with a man to whom she isn’t married). As far as I’m concerned, there’s no scale of morality when it comes to terminating a pregnancy (which is why I refuse to talk about the specifics of how I got pregnant). Abortion is a matter of healthcare, and the reasons behind choosing abortion are the business only of the person choosing it, their healthcare practitioner and their partner. Even then, all other input is pr
operly overridden by the person whose body is at stake.
I understand why women offer their abortion stories as context for the overarching topic of abortion rights, but it’s not something I personally have much interest in doing. I find it much more interesting to observe how opponents of abortion – particularly those invested in maintaining the enforcement of reproductive labour in cisgender women – characterise women who own their abortion experiences (which is very different to ‘confessing to’ or ‘admitting to’ abortion experiences, because never forget that asserting autonomy and choice over our own bodies is still a shameful matter that we must beg forgiveness for). If I discuss abortion as a practical option rather than one for which I must apologise, I am automatically cast by anti-choice zealots as a ‘whore’, a ‘slut’, a ‘selfish bitch’ and a ‘loose woman’ who needs to ‘learn how to keep her legs shut’.
Don’t be fooled into thinking we’ve moved on from the oldtimey mindset that saw women institutionalised for having sex. The old trope of the harlot is very much alive today. The speed with which certain people race to brand women as immoral is phenomenal, and it pales only in comparison to the satisfaction they take from spitting the accusation at us. If they could get away with it, these people would be pinning scarlet letters to our chests and making us crawl on our bellies in the streets while the righteous gather around to pelt us with rotten tomatoes. Or, to refer to a more recent entry into pop culture canon, they would march us through the village, naked and shorn, as onlookers gathered to spit at us, curse us, throw things at us, gawp at the bodies they despise and yet simultaneously want to fuck into submission – all while a buttoned-up nun strode behind us, pushing us through the rabble and intoning, ‘Shame!’ with every third step. Game of Thrones’ Cersei might have been duplicitous and conniving, but even she didn’t deserve that treatment.
Fight Like A Girl Page 9