Graham offers an explanation for why many women believe that their “femininity” is biological and inherent and why, “we believe that we would choose to wear makeup, curl our hair, and wear high heels even if men didn’t find women who dressed this way more attractive” (1994, p. 197). Women believe this, she says, because “to believe differently” would require the acknowledgement that our behaviour is controlled by “external variables”; that is, men’s use of force and its threat. Recognizing  this would mean that women would have to “acknowledge our terror” (p. 197).

“I am sitting at my kitchen table waiting for my lover to arrive with lettuce and tomatoes and rum and sherry wine and a big floury loaf of bread in the fading sunlight. Coffee is percolating gently, and my mood is mellow. I have been very happy lately, just wallowing in it selfishly, knowing it will not last very long, which is all the more reason to enjoy it now.”

Performing the rituals of the ordinary as an act of faith.