| Fragments: The Emergence of the Superwoman |
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| Written by Carla Atherton | |||||||
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The world is at our feet, but is it too much and what is the cost? Sometimes I don't know whether to shit or go blind. It's true. And I think that many overworked, over-taxed, over-stimulated women of western and European societies feel that way. We women of privileged countries and communities have choices now, right? The world is at our feet. Equality issues are on the mend, women are being paid more, we work outside the home more, women can speak out and vote and run countries and write and create art that makes it to the consciousness of our larger communities and mother as few or as many children as we wish. We're in an era when women can overcome anything, when the only barriers we have now are the limits of our own self-esteem and imagination, because if we can imagine it or if we want to change something, we have all the resources and the skill and the support we might need to do something about it. Yes. We are at the threshold. We are at the mouth of the cave with our backs at its darkness. But the landscape we face, the sun and the immensity of its expansiveness is bright and unlimited; it can leave us blinking and unsure of our footing, of which steps to take to lead us down from the cliff this cave mouth led us to. The Problem We live in a world of mass-production and instant gratification, a mentally ill society of people stressed to the max most of the time so they can do things they're not sure they want to do, so they can have things they're not sure they want or need. We live in a society where more effort is put into creating illusions of wealth and happiness rather than the real things. We women are at the centre of this. We run and organize and nurture and work and fight and mediate and explain and hold it all together. With the information age, our world is expanding at lightening speed. We have so much to keep track of. Hell, this magazine itself is another thing to read and consider; even though it is intended to be an annex, it's another thing to do, nevertheless! We are becoming sick from the effort, and it is difficult to comprehend the physical, emotional, and mental toll this is having on individual women, on our society as a whole. Because when there is a whole sea of people running without thinking, pushing past each other to get there first, freaking out in line-ups because they have to pick their kids up at band practice and the line is going too freaking slow, we have a problem. We have a collective meltdown even the people who refused to participate in this madness are sucked into. We have tired and frazzled women. It's just too much. Too much to do and take care of. Just as I write this, my son calls asking to eat over at the neighbours' and my girls come in from the rain with a friend asking me to light a fire and make them hot chocolate. And I just barely had time for a bath (was trying to squeeze in some relaxation time in the tub full of stress relief bath salts) before they came in with their demands. I'm dripping wet in my housecoat, inspired yet continuously interrupted; and did I mention that the bloody phone keeps ringing! Yes, you might say, "don't answer it," but I'm expecting an important call, a call if missed would create more work for me tracking down and re-arranging a meeting with the caller, yet again. Sometimes I feel sick to my stomach--the very thought of certain things that have caused me great stress over the years elicits an actual physical reaction the second I think of them. Yes, we can not do, but how? But how do we stop? How do we get out? How do we live a different life when you can feel the energy in the streets, in your neighbourhoods, in your friends' houses? I know women who can't sleep because they can't quiet the next day's to-do list running through their heads at night. They can't relax. They can't stop or else they'll drown in it all. We cannot escape this society entirely unless we live in the bush somewhere with no connection to the outside world. But what if you're not interested in burying your head in the sand? What if you do want to know what is going on in the world so you can help and do and engage? What if you want to have some sort of balance? How do you live here, and not live here all at the same time? Making Ourselves Sick When we are immersed in this society, we can't do whatever we want, but must adapt and bend and try to make change from the inside--and doesn't that take a lot of energy and cause a lot of stress! As if there wasn't enough to do! Many of the folks claiming to have the solutions tell us how to cope, but not how to change anything. Books and articles spout: "girls, here is how to deal with the new surge of girl bullies!" But maybe we should be thinking about how we stop these girls from becoming bullies in the first place. Maybe we should be thinking about how we can heal our society so that no one is running so fast that the rest of us choke on their dust? When we try to slow down, we feel criticized by others--it's as if all those people who are running can't let you stop. This summer I was criticized by family members for being "late" meeting them places. We were on holiday desperately trying to slow down a little to enjoy our time. We were purposely making great efforts to slow down, to not stress out about being at the meeting spot at 5:00 or 5:05. I find it outrageous that we have to put forth effort and meet criticism for letting go a little. We have to be stressed about de-stressing! Dealing with the stress of running isn't enough--we need to conjure up extra mental and emotional energy to defend ourselves from outside criticism when we desperately need to rest--we need to waste this energy defending ourselves instead of using it to enjoy our lives! This constant stress can greatly affect us mentally. To keep track of so many things, those circles of thought and strings of conversation (I just have to tell you about that book I read), those ideas and sparks of creativity (I want to paint that sliver of the moon I saw last night), those lists of duty and necessity (buy eggs, get gas, mark papers). It's crazy-making. I tell you, I can spot a woman with those circles spinning in her head a mile away. There is a part of her that is gone, that is internally struggling to sort and cope. It is a mighty feat to handle it all, but if survived, it can create a brain capable of anything Einstein's genius brain could spit out. Once I stood in the line-up of a restaurant and could not even comprehend the menu. It wasn't that I couldn't decide what to order for the kids; I honestly couldn't translate the words on the florescent menu into anything that my brain could understand. I was that overwhelmed. I was that over-stimulated. For an agonizing few minutes in that busy, greasy place where desperate parents feed their children junk (just this once!), I stood with my kids holding my hands, and I shut down. Since then I have trained myself. I have been in on-the-job training, thrown into life with no course or manual, to the most vicious of wolves. I have learned how to stop. shift. deal with an issue. stop. shift. deal with the next one. This is a variation of multi-tasking, but perhaps affords a few more places to slow and shift, to focus and, well, think. The choices are simple here: do or die. Rise to the occasion or melt down. So, I feel a growth, an evolution taking place within my head, in my brain. It is a quick learning, a rapid ascent from the normal woman brain I was born with to one that can cook dinner, sort out a brawl between a 6 year old and an 8 year old, answer a call from a crying friend, and fax house plans to a framer all at the same time. We women who are in these trenches must adapt. Like I said, we do or die. The Illusion of Choice Is this trend I'm seeing due to a difference in the lives we are living in this generation? I think so. Definitely so. Things are always changing; the world we live in is very different than the one our mothers and grandmothers lived in when they were children and young women. Some ways it is better, some ways it is worse. Where many women of earlier generations felt restricted and had few choices (were repressed, unheard, unfulfilled) many women are now faced with too many choices, or, perhaps, the illusion of choice. We have more space for movement, we can be heard, but instead of being unfulfilled, we are now overflowing. We can decide not to work as much, but are then faced with the stress of low income. We can decide not to drive that child to art class, but are then faced with the hassle of arranging a car pool. We can have it all, right? But do we need it all?  Photo: Gloria Stefanson And the real question remains: are there really choices or is this an illusion? If one of our essential goals is to ensure our children are able to follow their dreams or to make sure we can pay our bills or to finish that novel or half-written song, how can we do those things without driving children to their drum lessons or working a few more hours or getting up extra early to write a few paragraphs? Some things cannot be done for us. Yes, we can choose what we want and how we can attain those goals, but there isn't always a choice as to whether or not we work hard and for long hours. I am not going to balk at the choices I have--nor will I complain about what I do every day, because it is most excellent; I make an impact, I am living fully and abundantly and with my eyes wide to possibility. But it must be known that it is hard, and huge, and so overwhelming that sometimes what I need to give is larger than I am. At the end of every day, I need to shut it all down and rest even though I'm never done the ever-growing to-do list beside the computer. If I'm going to have it in me to get up and take it all on the next day, I need to know when to say when--when to say, that can wait until tomorrow. Picking Up The Pieces Sometimes I am in pieces, unsure of which fragment to pick up. My thoughts are in fragments. Shift to work. Shift to play. Shift to family. Shift to volunteer. And those fragments are broken into even smaller fragments. Shift to writing article. Shift to crying child. Shift to phone ringing. Shift to arranging play date. Shift to paying phone bill. Shift to peeling potatoes. Shift back to writing article. Shift to burning potatoes. Shift to turning off fire alarm. I am pulled so hard in every direction that I am at risk of being torn apart completely, ripped limb by limb to every navigational direction. And sometimes I'm scared. And the only way I can sort it all out is if I sit and organize it, if I make a categorized list or write it down in an article or a journal entry--and it's still only a piece of it, a fragment, because it's all just too big to capture, even on paper, even if you are a writer or master at writing lists. Women are at the centre of life. And that is a position of great importance and deserving of the utmost respect. We're responsible for lives, for our communities, for income, for families, for the earth--we can't even have a bath without feeling responsible for wasting too much water! And the only thing I can think of to relieve some of the stress, to instigate some sort of change in perspective and workload, is to talk about it. To first know that we are not alone, that there is support and encouragement and a listening ear out there. Let's put a word to it, name it, understand it, and make sense of it. We need to change it, work with it, put stock and value into what we women do every day. I think we need to blow it out of the water, because I never have been nor ever will be a proponent for suffering, or doing anything worthwhile, in silence. Comments (2)
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