This is Deliberately Difficult & Laughing. The place for all women who are done with the “good” girl/woman/wife/mother performance. Unlocking how to: break down invisible barriers, show up with genuine authenticity, grow the courage to be disliked, whittle down perfectionism, and practice proper self-care.
Hi!
Four weeks into publishing both an article and a newsletter per week. Insane. That I’m doing it at all and that I’ve been doing it for four weeks (even if some go out later than planned).
This week’s newsletter is about absurdity. Absurd patriarchal traditions and absurd thinking around “normal”.
Enjoy!
In Italy, a rapist could avoid punishment by marrying his victim.
Of all the absurd patriarchal traditions…
This archaic “rehabilitating marriage” provision (matrimonio riparatore) existed until recently. It has to be one of the more blatant examples of how patriarchy functions to let men get away with almost anything, while — shifting the blame to the victim (she asked for it) and victimizing her even further.
Just imagine… marrying your rapist? Having to live with him the rest of your life? Having his children? No I can’t imagine it. Because it’s unimaginable.
Why it even existed? Because a women’s honor wasn’t even her own. It was her family’s. And family’s didn’t want the shame of her being dishonored, so they forced her into a truly unimaginable life.
When Franca Viola was raped in 1966, she broke with this tradition.
She refused to marry her rapist.
At enormous personal cost, and that of her family.
They were ostracized, threatened, had their property attacked.
Her refusal, and the rapist being sentenced to 11 years in prison, forced Italians to examine the tradition, the injustice of it. It sparked a national debate. But it took until 1981 before Italy finally abolished the “rehabilitating marriage” provision.
“Act normal!”
How often have you heard and said that?
Normal doesn’t exist.
It’s a construct created and perpetuated by those who (need to) make rules and policies. Governments. Insurers. Health care.
They want to know what’s common so they can outlaw, exclude, or … the uncommon.
Heck, for the longest time psychology (and, I expect, sociology) was entirely focused on finding “normal”.
I’m still not sure which caused the other. The rule makers needing to know what’s common inspiring the search for it. Or the search for it inspiring rule making for the 80% and conveniently ignoring the other 20.
Causing the entire field to label everything uncommon: disorders.
Not until the field finally started looking for differences, did things came into view that they’d never even heard of before.
Like aphantasia (not having a mind’s eye) or not having an inner-voice.
I can’t imagine what that’s like. Nor can anyone without an inner-voice imagine what it’s like to have one. And all of us always assume that everyone else experiences the world the same way we do…
Maybe that’s why we like to think “normal” exists and why we so often ask “Is it normal to …?”
Pity that finding there are many more differences than every imagined, hasn’t yet led to de-pathologizing so-called disorders.
Especially “spectrum” disorders. Shouldn’t the fact that a disorder is expressed in different degrees throughout a “disordered” population, have raised more questions?
Like whether the behavior associated with them is far more ubiquitous but isn’t spotted because it remains sub-clinical: not causing enough disruption / disability / uncommonness to get onto the radar of anyone myopically focused on “normal”.
In centuries past, we were a lot more accepting of variety.
It’s very interesting to me that non-Western societies still deal very differently with many of the “disorders”. Take ADHD. In India they think of people showing ADHD behavior as old souls who have a lot of loose ends to tie up.
The three most recent articles I published on Deliberately Difficult & Laughing:
The one question no man, ever, even thinks to ask
Yet women do with stupefying regularityAmelia Earhart: 16th female licensed aviator and so much more
Trailblazing and inspiring women #2Perfectionist? Had enough? Does no good to lower your standards. There’s a better way.
Perfectionism comes in three flavors: cruel, toxic, and delusional.
I have accepted the status quo of patriarchy far too often for far too long.
I often didn’t even see it for what it was.
Or, if I did, I didn’t think it had anything to do with my gender.
Naive? Probably.
More like not considering gender-bias a thing because my giftedness protected me.
It meant I never felt disadvantaged by “as a woman you have to be 10x better than any man to be treated equally”. Because I was, so it didn’t present an immediate problem.
By the way, see how absurd that statement even is?
Equally? No way.
To be treated the same as a man who’s 10x less competent than you are, more like.
When the scales finally fell from my eyes, I started seeing more and more examples of the absurd ways in which women are treated and assessed differently.
What absurdities have you experienced or observed?
Please share your stories. I’m thinking of putting together an article to show and call out the absurdities women face in patriarchy. And it would tickle me no end if I can do that with real life stories!
So, hit reply, or if you’re reading this on the publication:
Live long and prosper.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.