#gender commentary

Excerpts:

"He is not a bad man, and that, I realize suddenly, is the root of my hurt,” the narrator says. “He is not a bad man at all. To describe him as evil or wicked or corrupted would be a deep disservice to him. And yet — ” The title refers to the extra stitch sometimes given to a woman after the area between her vagina and anus is either torn or cut during childbirth. The purpose of the extra stitch is to make the vagina tighter than it was before childbirth in order to increase the husband’s pleasure during sex.

I was first introduced to the husband stitch in 2014, when a friend in medical school told me about a birth her classmate observed. After the baby was delivered, the doctor said to the woman’s husband, “Don’t worry, I’ll sew her up nice and tight for you,” and the two men laughed while the woman lay between them, covered in her own and her baby’s blood and feces. The story terrified me, the laughter in particular, signaling some understanding of wrongdoing, some sheepishness in doing it anyway. The helplessness of the woman, her body being altered without her consent by two people she has to trust: her partner, her doctor. The details of the third-hand account imprinted into my memory so vividly that the memory of the story feels now almost like my own memory. 

I asked three male friends in medical residencies in different areas around the country if they’d heard of the husband stitch and only one had, but not from medical school; he knew it from Machado’s story. And yet it happens, based on the chatter on message boards, women’s chatter, which I have been conditioned to approach with skepticism, a category of information I might dismiss as an “old wives’ tale” (a term with its own troubling connotations). It happens even now

But this is not an essay about the husband stitch. It’s an essay about believing and being believed

In class, I don’t say to my students, “Do you feel it, too? Or can you imagine it? The perils of living in a world made by a different gender? The justified and unjustified mistrust? The near-constant experience of being disbelieved, of learning to question your own sanity? How much more it hurts to be let down by ‘one of the good ones?’”

Women Reclaiming Goblinism

- Calliope, First Kill 1x01

Compassion is not a weakness. It is a gift to be embraced.

- Sebastian, First Kill 1x02

This comparison isn’t so much “two opposing views on compassion” as it is “two unique situations centered on empathy/compassion vs violence/murder.” 

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Calliope never disowns her femininity or her empathy, though she does tie the two together. But she does recognize those attributes as reasons her family is sheltering her, and she resents that. Resents feeling like an outsider in her own family because of it. She doesn’t try to erase her empathy, only tries to set it aside long enough to “do what needs to be done” and finally commit the First Kill.

She never wavers from her belief that monsters deserve to be killed; she simply doesn’t put Juliette in the category of “Monster.”

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Juliette has been procrastinating her graduation to Full Vampire™ as long as possible, knocking back as many blood pills and blood smoothies as she can to stave off the symptoms. She cannot abide the thought of taking someone’s life and only accomplishes it in defense of her lifelong best friend.

Specifically, scenes that made me nearly burst with joy are when they put her and Carmen together and when they put her and Ali together. It gives me so much joy to be able to see women interact like that on screen. Especially with Ali being Daniel's first love. There's a sort of expectation for them to be catty toward each other or something. (At least in media). But they're not. They got on like a house on fire. And I think that's important.

I mean, I always remembered that it was good, but I didn't remember how good. Like, when I watched the series the first time, I was just looking for an interesting retelling of fairy tales. I didn't have words in my vocabulary like Hero's Journey, Agency, or character arc. So going back and watching with years of fandom under my belt is mind-blowing!

As with the Frog Princess series by E.D. Baker, I had no idea how rare it would be to find a piece of media that is so full of women, specifically women who do things that move the story forward. I had no idea how important it was to younger me to be so invested in a show that has women who are allowed to be the hero (or Savior) and to be the Evil Queen and to maybe redeem themselves through hard work and platonic love.

This series smashes the Bechdel test to little pieces in almost every scene. But my favorite part is perhaps the agency that is given to the characters. Take the Cinderella episode (only the third ep of the first season). Cinderella, after having a heart-to-heart with Emma Swan about becoming a single mother, decides to "change her life" and steal from Mr Gold. Regina tries her darnedest to get Emma out of there (even though her efforts actually accomplish the opposite). Ruby leads our hero astray on purpose to try to give Cinderella (her friend) her best chance. It's amazing.

Can I also say that I love that the only person in the Enchanted Forest who had broken a deal with Rumpelstiltskin and lived to tell the tale was Cinderella? Iconic.