Better Things | Listen to the Roosters
To be a woman in the world is to be built up and then let down. They cut us or sell us or marry us off. You’re primed and you’re prepped and abused and adored and harassed and worshipped. And then it all stops. All of it. We even age out of the bad things, like being fetishized or diminished or talked down to. It’s even worse. You’re invisible, and you’re literally left hunched over and alone with Santa’s belly—and a beard to boot—walking around, shrinking, thinking, ‘what just happened?’
You retreat. You’re ashamed, you’re unseen. No one has prepared you for it and no one ever tells women this is going to happen. Our prize in the goody bag after everyone has had their fill of us is shingles, thin bones, whiskers, and bunions.
You’re not viable. But if you have daughters, you feel it even more because the world wants them now. Then: MENOPAUSE. It’s the grossest thing in the world. Nobody wants to hear about it which is why nobody ever prepared you for it. You’re a lady—you’re supposed to be pretty and attractive. Even the Dalai Lama was like “Ehh, it’s not great if a woman is *grimace*.” Even for the Dalai Lama you gotta be cute. “Yes, inner beauty is most important. But still, attractive.”
I mean, even the fucking Dalai Lama let us down. Why don’t we all say this to each other? Women have to say this to each other. Women are afraid to talk to each other. Women should be brothers to each other. We have to be brothers to each other.
Phil: “Oh, very good. Out to the seas. The answers are in the water. It’s where we come from and where we always need to go back to.”
