Untangling Patriarchy from our Homes and our Art
Spoiler: It's not a fight
First time here? Welcome. I’m Sarina, Mother, mentor, artist and writer.
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“Can’t you even make a meal for your partner AND be a devoted mother?” - the voice said.
That voice baited me to turn on myself and find myself less than other women, less than other mothers.
It was day five of being a human sofa to my fevering, whimpering three year old with a mysterious virus. My lap, her entire universe.
I know that voice too well.
“There’s no way I can cook tonight, babe,” I texted, untangling myself from the oppressive patriarchal ideal of a woman and mother who will deplete herself so long as she can be everything to everyone at all times, with dinner on the table and a neat house to boot.
Let’s be real, even when our partners do not expect such things of us, as mine thankfully doesn’t, it’s not without great discomfort - to voice our limits and boundaries,
but it’s key to untangling ourselves as women, our families and our art from the tragic patriarchal paradigm of pushing past our limits, of extraction and depletion - of our bodies and of Nature.
It is essential that we speak up with a fiercely gentle NO.
Despite my throbbing hips and oppressive voices trying to highjack me while sofa-bound under my daughter’s precious 13 kgs, I wasn’t willing to abuse myself for not measuring up to abusive standards of women and mothers.
I was untangling by refusing to enter the trance of not enoughness*, where I was supposed to believe I was useless, because by devoting my body and energy to the high needs of my sick child, the house wasn’t also clean, dinner wasn’t also cooked and I wasn’t even writing a post or making visual art (‘call yourself a creative?’ - familiar?)
*A reference to Tara Brach’s ‘trance of unworthiness’
The patriarchy is capitalistic at its core, centring economy over humanity, profit over people, disconnection over sensitivity.
Yes, the patriarchy loves a woman who is disconnected from the subtleties of her body’s language, as well as her beauty, wisdom and power,
but no, the patriarchy is not men. And contrary to general belief, it does not serve men - it cannot serve men when it does not serve the Truth of humanity.
The patriarchal system baits us, especially targeting women, to believe we can never be enough,
it wants us to believe there’s a SELF problem, not a system problem, where the only recourse is to keep quiet, keep performing, keep producing, keep maximising profit, at any cost to our bodies and Nature.
All while our children are watching.
So what can we do to untangle patriarchy from our homes and our art?
We can gather, together. We can share our humanity in conversation, so we remember this is NOT a SELF problem, it’s a system problem - one that we get to untangle from, each time we share our fiercely gentle NO.
Untangling doesn’t need to be a fight.
It can be a gentle loosening of the ways we’ve bound ourselves up with fixation on appearance and unhealthy to-do lists, as if they’re a marker of our worth
and instead, honour our pace and rhythms,
honour our impulses to create - without justification, honour cues to rest - without justification.
Our fiercely gentle NO comes from the loving discernment that our bodies will not be pushed past their limits and our art won’t be forced out of us.
The paradigm we’re called to create is centred in reverence for the divine intelligence of Nature, not without wobbles, but in trust, that instead of normalising depletion and extraction, we normalise nourishment.
And it starts with speaking up.
Love,
Sarina. X
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Oooohhh this gave me the feels.
It’s amazing just how deeply this subconscious reaction to needing to be able to do it all, as a woman, goes. I am still trying to untie myself from the guilt of not doing it all, or of not wanting to do it all.
I love the fierce gentle No. that will be ringing around in my ears for some time.
"All while our children are watching."
Yeah, we live in a sick society. I think most men wouldn't expect nor want a woman to overextend herself. I will say, for the sake of the children especially, the still-man-slanted language of "patriarchy" probably creates an image similar to the one seen by men, that they're somehow the bad guys even though they never demanded any of this. Many are bad guys, but in any case, if it's about the kids, hopefully there won't be little boys thinking they're bad or their fathers are, for nothing.