I can’t thinking about being a good woman. Mostly because I will never be one. And you dear reader will never be one and there has never been a good woman to exist, nor would I actually want the myth of good woman to exists. A thread of anxiety I bring to my therapist and she asks me when that thread was woven and I stop myself from screaming and gesturing broadly to the fires of capitalism and patriarchy and white supremacy burning at my front door. I don’t do the dishes, I usually don’t cook, the concept of laundry and most other domestic chores are both extremely overwhelming and boring to me. And even in writing this or discussing with girlfriends over brunch I feel the need to preface with i sometimes cook or i can cook, i just don’t want to every night or I load the dishwasher in the morning if its really messy or I’ll wash the sheets when I really want to.
I cry to my therapist about not doing the dishes because I am partnered with a man who works out of the house and the kitchen sits messy all day while I make my art in close proximity to last nights tomato sauce drying on the dishes.
I don’t cook dinner or grocery shop but I justify the choice as “practical”.
I paint my nails yellow and drink beer right from the bottle and hear my grandmother chastising me for not “being lady like”. Always fit for consumption of men.
I feel guilty for wanting to get lip fillers, I feel guilty for not having lip fillers and I feel guilty for making fun of the women on the tv with lip fillers.
I feel annoyed that despite my beliefs and actions the strings of all my ancestors fought for, I still feel guilty. I read history books and feel sad that I see the same social similarities laid out on the pages of “the past” that feel too present for comfort.
The pressure of being a good woman keeps me up late. I write poems, I sing sings, I write about. And here I am still, a not good woman with no desire to be the good woman I want to be patted on the head for. And most sickly, I think if I met the proverbial good woman, I wouldn’t really like her all that much. And then I wonder if that makes me anti-woman.
It’s not the first time I have written about the stay at home girlfriend stress of being alive and domestic labour and all that trying to being a woman in the year 2023 holds. Because it’s not just the resistance to domestic labour, but in all of our choices we are judged, as good woman or not.
To have children, how to have children, when to have children, your job, your hair, the way to wear a dress or the decision to change your name. And no matter our choice, or lack of choice. We still loose.
I write a poem and get angry that I have to be good at art, and make art that represents all women when I can never be all women. I am mad that I am still writing about this in a sense. And that if I do write about it I wonder if I am writing about it in the right way. I wonder how to critique women (and lets be real here – white women) while uplifting all women. I have beautiful conversations with woman about liberation and power and resistance and reparations and radical ways of re-imagining the world only to then insist that being a good woman is a worthy cause. A way to be. Women love to hit each other over the head with patriarchy, less competition for the gold star girl award in the good woman olympics.
We can’t win. The game is rigged, the system works perfectly well and I wonder if the good woman olympics is just a spectator sport to tire us all out that they think we wont notice when they take the few small rights we had to begin with. If we are to busy wielding the sword of patriarchy back and forth they will vote without us.
But what I think we can do, a true act of resistance. Is tell the truth. Like the whole honest truth of the room. To become so relentlessly ourselves and honest that people see it on our lips before we speak it. To feel the fire of anger fuel us and to laugh with our full stomach out, to ask for exactly what we need, to sense into what we truly want from life and love and relationships and groceries and sex and baristas and best friends and art and dinner.
Findings 📍
Beginning the seasonal rewatch of Gilmore Girls as god intended, despite the 35 degree weather 🍂
Knitting and sewing for the future little people coming into my world soon 👼
Very into the new Lucky Sweater app – me made and slow fashion trading app (think Depop without the insane prices on a sweater with a hole in it). You can use my invite code here (free.99!) not spon, I just genuinely love it and makes me feel less gross trading for a new fall wardrobe.
spending too much money on candles
NEW DATE! MAKE YOUR (BAD) ART! Sept 21st @7pm. Part visioning workshop part making shit with other people. I am constantly trying to recreate the open studio vibes of my undergrad, working in the studio with pals, leaning over the work benches to ask for someones opinion, think out loud. Basically dream artist life living with other artists. Magic.
Bring your pens, pencils, scissors and get ready to make some magic and (bad) art.
My sweet pal Karina is leading an Artist Way book study. Join her for more more creative community
COMMUNITY AID REQUEST! Friend and fellow artist and galaxy seeker stylo star is living through what I can only describe as the most nightmarish housing situation and she needs to help to protect her art and wellbeing. Save our stylo.
loving you all in your rage, goodness and softness
xx
Phoebe