As I was reading I was thinking about how quickly I learnt never to mention my two natural home births. I realised very quickly into motherhood than no women wanted to hear them. They didn’t want to hear 2 positive and beautiful birth experiences. As I did suffer, almost die or suffer hours of agonising labour I didn’t fit in the ‘mould’ of relatable birth experiences and my truth wasn’t welcome in the birth discourse. I wasn’t likeable because I had a positive experience.
Could list many many examples of this but that one came front of mind when reading.
Which proves the point you make about how limiting the likeability narrative makes our experience of women and their truths. Being likeable makes us smaller and limits our choices. It doesn’t raise us ❤️🫶🔥🔥🍭
Thanks for stopping by. Good to hear you love the piece.
What it be like if the full range of truths could be heard - what was it like to be silent about your home births? Your beautiful positive births? I am full of questions.
Who did you speak about it with? Who could tolerate and celebrate these experiences?
What losses are there in not hearing that births like you experienced are possible?
It is through profound feminist work that the expansive range of birth experiences can now be spoken about - historically there was silence about the medicalisation of birth and the subsequent disempowerment of women. These conversations have to be had. In doing so we have somehow silenced women who don't fit that mould, and who could spread narratives that are as important. I'm sorry no woman wanted to hear your testimony.
Raising us all, not only palatable and typcal narratives is exactly what my roar is about 🫶
Oh I can only second this! Thank you Amy for opening up and sharing - I too had two natural homebirths, one of which was in an appartement in a country I had never been to just 5 months prior…
Instead of curiosity, love and support, we (I say we as we have similar experiences), get silences and neglected in conversations. Like positive empowering experiences aren’t allowed… in practise. Only in theory.
It’s fascinating really, like how the audacity of choosing to be in control of our environment (assuming you also birthed at home by choice), challenges the general status quo where women aren’t supposed to be the superior of their own bodies….. well done mum, I salute you
"Here’s the thing, how much do women owe us their ALL, their full picture?"
This is a question that I've been grappling with ever since I started writing online. I've always been fairly comfortable writing about my experience with mental illness--that in and of itself has been incredibly healing and helped me embrace sharing the stories that are messy and more vulnerable, unfiltered.
At the same time, there are aspects of my life that I do feel I have a lot to say/write about, but don't feel entirely comfortable doing so. My conflicted feelings around whether or not I want kids and the role that my mental illness plays in that; my weird relationship with weed, the odd experience of being in "women's spaces" as an AFAB non-binary person. I remind myself that I'm allowed to be intentional about what I share and don't share--that just because I'm open about one aspect of my life, doesn't mean I'm obligated to share other parts. But sometimes I wonder if it's more the fear of being judged or saying the wrong thing or something that offends someone, that prevents me from writing about those things. Maybe I am unconsciously restricting myself. It's a tough thing to navigate.
Thank you for this nuanced and thought-provoking piece <3
They were! They were a good exercise in thinking about those stories that I might be shying away from telling and maybe thinking a little more critically about why I'm hesitant to tell them.
Oooh, this really gets under the skin. Thank you Danusia. I feel like I could write books and books in answer to some of these questions.
In fact, there's a book I've been meaning to write for 7 years and I'm edging closer, slowly finding that courage. This post has pushed me even further in that direction. So powerful.
I have a bunch of stories that may or may not make it into the final product. They're just titles or loose skeletons of a story, but I'm thinking of writing these one by one and putting these drafts here on Substack as my paid offering. It would be great to get a bit of reader feedback. To see what discussions come up and what this will become once it starts to see the light of day and take a few breaths.
This is such a breath of fresh air to read. I think it also captures a lot of my love/hate relationship with posting on other socials. The bot-like posts and heavily curated highlight reels are really turning me off lol.
Hooray for fresh air. I am ever so grateful this captured the odd feelings when we receive curated relatability. We are done to. That’s such a turn off! 🔻
One-thousand percent. Thank you so much for writing this, Danusia. I’m 49, not a mother, cannot “relate” to Hannah N. in most ways, yet hold zero judgment about her (I don’t even know her!). Do I judge the women making it their job to police her or anyone else who strays from their own narrow narrative? Yes.
I have an extremely un-relatable lifestyle yet find myself softening this for the sake of relating (I’m sober, an extreme minimalist, a dual Canadian-American citizen living in Thailand, queer yet married to a het-cis man, don’t bow down to biomedical-pharmaceutical paradigms, etc., etc.). I’ve felt acute pressure to self-censor these past few months (past four years, really), because I don’t belong to either of the Big Teams in U.S. politics. The narratives feel suffocating and insufferable, from many sides. The implicit (sometimes explicit) message: get in line, or else.
In my book NOISE: a manifesto modernising motherhood I talk about narrowtives in place of narratives. You reminded me 😉
I’m so curious about what’s contained in etc etc. I can’t help myself. Btw it’s not for judgements sake, it’s to root for you. Even while is none of my business at all.
Self censorship and softening - there have been reasons to do this. Those of us that stray from the neat compliant and bland can be seen as dangerous.
Danusia, I am in pure awe and gratitude of every single sentence you wrote. So much so that I’m going to relish in having received every ounce of this gift and will respond soon with my reflections. For now, it’s HELL FUCKING YES!!!!!! 🙌🏽
I stumbled especially on the prompt around following a path outside of the norm, and several things popped up where I feel as though I “fail” (or succeed?) to tick a majority. Though in different ways than you as I don’t have ten children for example.
The most present one right now is that of homeschooling, as where I’m from it’s not only socially unacceptable but also legally… and thereof an international move for us to be in a friendlier legislation. But despite that, the general socially pressure of the choice focuses on the “lack” rather than “gain”. What our children will “lack” and miss out on by not being in conventional school vs all the experiences and family time they gain by not spending the majority of their time in said school….
I hear you Elin! Homeschooling was and is a big trigger for people. Judged and shamed and it’s tough because it’s our beloved children we ‘risk’ so we’re told.
Moving country to make sure homeschooling is possible is a one helluva statement 👏
Inspiration overflow! Fuck yes, this is sending me in so many directions Danusia, it feels far beyond any typical ‘here’s some journal prompts’ and instead like I’m being offered two pills, one of which I know I’ll be going somewhere I can barely dare to imagine, thank you for the excited nervousness 👏
One akin to signing a contract with comfort and the other shooting me into a dimension far from any reality of ‘what people might think’, wild twists and backflips, fear deeply felt, shuddering, then spontaneous joy bursts, a gift from god for daring to see the absurdity of it all - something like this
Hoo boy you have put your finger on something important here. Thank you so much for this.
I wonder what if any role our relative ages/experiences with online worlds plays in? I could be really misreading this but I’m sensing a slightly millennial vibe on the tension, which feels right because millennials came of age/into their power in the Information age. I’m older (solid GenX, early 50s) and was in online spaces since before we used the term online. And so I have this natural reserve that I feel like is built into me. A holding back. Not a tension, a specifically “oh no we don’t discuss such things” kind of propriety.
Reminds me of my mom telling me once, very long ago, that she was let go from her job at a bank when very pregnant with her first child because “it was unseemly to have such a very pregnant person out in public/working.”
And to what degree are any of these narratives, these senses of propriety serving any of us anymore? (And yet. And also. We don’t owe anyone SHIT. We do not have to unzip our skin and bare our entire souls for the purposes of Monetizing Our Writing.
Or we can. If that’s what we find compelling about writing. If that’s what we find we want to write. If that’s what we find that we can’t stop writing.
And now for the close reader, the attentive one, the one who actually stuck with me and read this far, now I’ll tell my truth. My deep, dark, unseemly truth.
I don’t find writing hard. Editing, sure. Coming up with ideas, hell yes. Story construction/plot (I sometimes write fiction) can be. FINISHING a piece, yep, hard. Actually writing?
Yeah, no, it’s easy. Joyful. Straightforward. Simple.
Getting myself to do it? Impossible unless I play a lot of elaborate tricks on myself. I’m currently in the middle of my longest con yet - I’m on year 7 of a daily writing thing I do. Every damn day. Haven’t missed a one since sometime in the first six months (and then I only missed one or two and caught it within 24h.)
I feel like an impostor even calling myself a writer, and yet every night without fail I write three mini essays (or sometimes full blown ones. I think my average word count is probably like 750 words) on the best things I’ve seen or experienced in that day.
And it’s not hard. Not even a little. It’s the focus of my every day and a joy that I can do this, that I get to do this. (Ha yeah hardly any money made from it atm, but that’s because marketing, coordinating, pushing, advertising is hard. Super impossibly hard. Writing though? … not.)
Hi Karen, I read your words, went to look at your work here and digested your points about generations.
I agree about generational differences. For sure.
This is magic: We don’t owe anyone SHIT. We do not have to unzip our skin and bare our entire souls for the purposes of Monetizjng our Writing. Amen.
And to your con. You made me laugh. I can feel the ease with which you write. What a gift!
You didn’t ask for my advice and I have a couple of thoughts. Unsolicited advice - not appropriate here and IF you want to hear a thought I have as I think about reach and marketing, let me know. I enjoyed your smart, poignant, and funny daily updates.
That's the winning you tube formula. It gets us all into their Patreon ,the ones who do it.
"You think I'm smart,good looking and very charming and pleasant but I'm oh so lonely,no one understands me,I feel adrift in an incomprehensible world. No one (but you) gets WHO I AM.
All my girlfriends do a runner and leave me. I just can't find love. In fact,ha ha,I'm exactly like you,sign up for my Patreon please. It works . But only for pretty people. Actually we know that wealth,success and beauty don't guarantee exemption from the human condition. Just being human and alive can be a torture of existential pain but I do laugh now when some you tube charmer does the nobody understands me,I'm so lonely schtick.
Jane, as I read your description I kept being grateful I don’t see this version of pretty Patreon pity party. And I ingest enough content with similar themes to recognise it.
Attention grabbing and repulsive. Magnetic and soul sucking. There’s pseudo messages in there that glimmer a wee bit of valuable material.
But no. We realise we’re being groomed for the sale. A ‘theatric of nurture’ before the main act: the sell. 🤢
This is a great post Danusia, and I'm loving the comments too. It's got me pondering about the narratives I suppress. I notice I'm hesitant to speak about my childlessness in a world dominated by motherhood narratives. I also notice, as someone else commented above, how it can be hard to share positives and successes... like how I put my autoimmune disease into remission and how I'm currently navigating menopause quite easily.... Struggles seem to make us 'relatable', successes often make us alienated due to the envy and comparisons they can evoke in others. I notice even in some of my closest female friendships I have a tendency to play down my successes.... Thanks for this thought-provoking piece, I shall take it into my day and ponder further.
Eliza was a real woman, my great-great grandmother. Her story is almost unbelievable but true. Genealogy and digging through local newspapers has given me the framework.This is the story of a working class Victorian woman living through hard times and many setbacks to eventually discover unconditional love.
The voices of working class women of the period are illusory and I want to bring her to life, threee-dimensional.
There are rumours in the family that when a widow and in her fifties she found friendship, possibly love, with a woman of a similar age.
It is not a romance but I hope it will be a deep discovery of what it was like for spirited but constrained women of that era. Not only the events and tribulations of their outer lives but also the internal discourse of their thoughts and emotions.
If I get it right it may be as relevant today as it was back then.
I will be coming to the women in this wonderful Substack community to help me avoid the typical male tropes and descriptions. I hope I will be able to draw on your wisdom.
The title is “Eliza” but I’m not sure about the subtitle yet.
Danusia, I've been sharing your article left and right and wanted to pop in here again to share my reflections with you. First, THANK YOU for leading us to a refreshing new way of self-expression. I answered the reflective prompts and holy shit did it tap into some juicy memories of how I've been silenced and flat out disrespected over the years and in turn, ended up doing that to myself to be accepted. I think it'd be a potent experience to have a gathering of sorts to share our reflections, what came up for us, and how we can apply our learnings to our future writings/talks/ways of relating as humans (let me know if you wanna chat more about this). There's a rising tenor in Substack around this space being more "authentic" than other communities, yet I feel in maintaining an us/them mentality, we're repeating the same narrative in humanity that seeks to categorize and judge vs. curiously understand. Your article speaks to this in such an eloquent way that I found myself feeling both let down to find this happening here AND encouraged that I can make an impact by continuing to share more of what I desire and not conform. I'm grateful for you. 🌹
Love this article. So very true…
As I was reading I was thinking about how quickly I learnt never to mention my two natural home births. I realised very quickly into motherhood than no women wanted to hear them. They didn’t want to hear 2 positive and beautiful birth experiences. As I did suffer, almost die or suffer hours of agonising labour I didn’t fit in the ‘mould’ of relatable birth experiences and my truth wasn’t welcome in the birth discourse. I wasn’t likeable because I had a positive experience.
Could list many many examples of this but that one came front of mind when reading.
Which proves the point you make about how limiting the likeability narrative makes our experience of women and their truths. Being likeable makes us smaller and limits our choices. It doesn’t raise us ❤️🫶🔥🔥🍭
Thanks for stopping by. Good to hear you love the piece.
What it be like if the full range of truths could be heard - what was it like to be silent about your home births? Your beautiful positive births? I am full of questions.
Who did you speak about it with? Who could tolerate and celebrate these experiences?
What losses are there in not hearing that births like you experienced are possible?
It is through profound feminist work that the expansive range of birth experiences can now be spoken about - historically there was silence about the medicalisation of birth and the subsequent disempowerment of women. These conversations have to be had. In doing so we have somehow silenced women who don't fit that mould, and who could spread narratives that are as important. I'm sorry no woman wanted to hear your testimony.
Raising us all, not only palatable and typcal narratives is exactly what my roar is about 🫶
Oh I can only second this! Thank you Amy for opening up and sharing - I too had two natural homebirths, one of which was in an appartement in a country I had never been to just 5 months prior…
Instead of curiosity, love and support, we (I say we as we have similar experiences), get silences and neglected in conversations. Like positive empowering experiences aren’t allowed… in practise. Only in theory.
It’s fascinating really, like how the audacity of choosing to be in control of our environment (assuming you also birthed at home by choice), challenges the general status quo where women aren’t supposed to be the superior of their own bodies….. well done mum, I salute you
✨💖🔥
It’s bloody brilliant to see you and Amy talking about ‘non typical’ experiences - positive home births!
Congrats to you both on positive births in environments you chose. It’s sad when experiences are unwelcome because they upset people.
🥰🥰
"Here’s the thing, how much do women owe us their ALL, their full picture?"
This is a question that I've been grappling with ever since I started writing online. I've always been fairly comfortable writing about my experience with mental illness--that in and of itself has been incredibly healing and helped me embrace sharing the stories that are messy and more vulnerable, unfiltered.
At the same time, there are aspects of my life that I do feel I have a lot to say/write about, but don't feel entirely comfortable doing so. My conflicted feelings around whether or not I want kids and the role that my mental illness plays in that; my weird relationship with weed, the odd experience of being in "women's spaces" as an AFAB non-binary person. I remind myself that I'm allowed to be intentional about what I share and don't share--that just because I'm open about one aspect of my life, doesn't mean I'm obligated to share other parts. But sometimes I wonder if it's more the fear of being judged or saying the wrong thing or something that offends someone, that prevents me from writing about those things. Maybe I am unconsciously restricting myself. It's a tough thing to navigate.
Thank you for this nuanced and thought-provoking piece <3
You’re so welcome Nico. You are at choice about what you share 💞
It’s the dance between what to include, what to skirt around, what to omit and the big WHY’S of these decisions.
I’m wondering if any of the prompts might help you?
They were! They were a good exercise in thinking about those stories that I might be shying away from telling and maybe thinking a little more critically about why I'm hesitant to tell them.
Oooh, this really gets under the skin. Thank you Danusia. I feel like I could write books and books in answer to some of these questions.
In fact, there's a book I've been meaning to write for 7 years and I'm edging closer, slowly finding that courage. This post has pushed me even further in that direction. So powerful.
Rahma your comment got me so jazzed I had to step away and calm. I’m being serious.
When a piece gets under my skin even if it’s a bit ouch I’m grateful. I grow, even when I didn’t know I needed to 🤣
I want to hear about your book. Simple as. Would you tell me more? Even something small would be a step towards bringing this out into the world.
Okay, here goes... The working title of the book that has been taking up space inside me, desperate to get out is:
"The Confessions of a 30-Year-Old Virgin"
Yes, it's me. I was her.
How many people does a woman have to sleep with before she can truly be 'free' and 'empowered'?
I'll admit, 0 was quite unstatisfying in many ways but at the moment I'm quite fulfilled with 1.
I don't rule out the idea of clocking up another one or two over the course of a lifetime depending on the length of my life (or marriage).
Pure genius.
Rahma I cannot express enough how much this book needs airspace.
Have you begun fleshing it out? (Unintended pun 🤦♀️)
📖
I have a bunch of stories that may or may not make it into the final product. They're just titles or loose skeletons of a story, but I'm thinking of writing these one by one and putting these drafts here on Substack as my paid offering. It would be great to get a bit of reader feedback. To see what discussions come up and what this will become once it starts to see the light of day and take a few breaths.
I’m hooked already!
This is such a breath of fresh air to read. I think it also captures a lot of my love/hate relationship with posting on other socials. The bot-like posts and heavily curated highlight reels are really turning me off lol.
Hooray for fresh air. I am ever so grateful this captured the odd feelings when we receive curated relatability. We are done to. That’s such a turn off! 🔻
One-thousand percent. Thank you so much for writing this, Danusia. I’m 49, not a mother, cannot “relate” to Hannah N. in most ways, yet hold zero judgment about her (I don’t even know her!). Do I judge the women making it their job to police her or anyone else who strays from their own narrow narrative? Yes.
I have an extremely un-relatable lifestyle yet find myself softening this for the sake of relating (I’m sober, an extreme minimalist, a dual Canadian-American citizen living in Thailand, queer yet married to a het-cis man, don’t bow down to biomedical-pharmaceutical paradigms, etc., etc.). I’ve felt acute pressure to self-censor these past few months (past four years, really), because I don’t belong to either of the Big Teams in U.S. politics. The narratives feel suffocating and insufferable, from many sides. The implicit (sometimes explicit) message: get in line, or else.
You’re welcome Dana!
In my book NOISE: a manifesto modernising motherhood I talk about narrowtives in place of narratives. You reminded me 😉
I’m so curious about what’s contained in etc etc. I can’t help myself. Btw it’s not for judgements sake, it’s to root for you. Even while is none of my business at all.
Self censorship and softening - there have been reasons to do this. Those of us that stray from the neat compliant and bland can be seen as dangerous.
It’s in the words ‘or else’.
Narrowtives! That really captures it, Danusia!
Danusia, I am in pure awe and gratitude of every single sentence you wrote. So much so that I’m going to relish in having received every ounce of this gift and will respond soon with my reflections. For now, it’s HELL FUCKING YES!!!!!! 🙌🏽
I cannot wait. But will. Thank you!
I stumbled especially on the prompt around following a path outside of the norm, and several things popped up where I feel as though I “fail” (or succeed?) to tick a majority. Though in different ways than you as I don’t have ten children for example.
The most present one right now is that of homeschooling, as where I’m from it’s not only socially unacceptable but also legally… and thereof an international move for us to be in a friendlier legislation. But despite that, the general socially pressure of the choice focuses on the “lack” rather than “gain”. What our children will “lack” and miss out on by not being in conventional school vs all the experiences and family time they gain by not spending the majority of their time in said school….
I hear you Elin! Homeschooling was and is a big trigger for people. Judged and shamed and it’s tough because it’s our beloved children we ‘risk’ so we’re told.
Moving country to make sure homeschooling is possible is a one helluva statement 👏
Ooohhhhhh I love this!
High praise Kirsten, you made my day! Ps Puglia sounds divine
Inspiration overflow! Fuck yes, this is sending me in so many directions Danusia, it feels far beyond any typical ‘here’s some journal prompts’ and instead like I’m being offered two pills, one of which I know I’ll be going somewhere I can barely dare to imagine, thank you for the excited nervousness 👏
Glad you found this juiced up your inspiration Sarina!
I'd love to hear what those two pills are about x
ps. thanks for the mention in Notes xx
One akin to signing a contract with comfort and the other shooting me into a dimension far from any reality of ‘what people might think’, wild twists and backflips, fear deeply felt, shuddering, then spontaneous joy bursts, a gift from god for daring to see the absurdity of it all - something like this
That’s quite something to swallow! Thank you so much for all your words 💞
Hoo boy you have put your finger on something important here. Thank you so much for this.
I wonder what if any role our relative ages/experiences with online worlds plays in? I could be really misreading this but I’m sensing a slightly millennial vibe on the tension, which feels right because millennials came of age/into their power in the Information age. I’m older (solid GenX, early 50s) and was in online spaces since before we used the term online. And so I have this natural reserve that I feel like is built into me. A holding back. Not a tension, a specifically “oh no we don’t discuss such things” kind of propriety.
Reminds me of my mom telling me once, very long ago, that she was let go from her job at a bank when very pregnant with her first child because “it was unseemly to have such a very pregnant person out in public/working.”
And to what degree are any of these narratives, these senses of propriety serving any of us anymore? (And yet. And also. We don’t owe anyone SHIT. We do not have to unzip our skin and bare our entire souls for the purposes of Monetizing Our Writing.
Or we can. If that’s what we find compelling about writing. If that’s what we find we want to write. If that’s what we find that we can’t stop writing.
And now for the close reader, the attentive one, the one who actually stuck with me and read this far, now I’ll tell my truth. My deep, dark, unseemly truth.
I don’t find writing hard. Editing, sure. Coming up with ideas, hell yes. Story construction/plot (I sometimes write fiction) can be. FINISHING a piece, yep, hard. Actually writing?
Yeah, no, it’s easy. Joyful. Straightforward. Simple.
Getting myself to do it? Impossible unless I play a lot of elaborate tricks on myself. I’m currently in the middle of my longest con yet - I’m on year 7 of a daily writing thing I do. Every damn day. Haven’t missed a one since sometime in the first six months (and then I only missed one or two and caught it within 24h.)
I feel like an impostor even calling myself a writer, and yet every night without fail I write three mini essays (or sometimes full blown ones. I think my average word count is probably like 750 words) on the best things I’ve seen or experienced in that day.
And it’s not hard. Not even a little. It’s the focus of my every day and a joy that I can do this, that I get to do this. (Ha yeah hardly any money made from it atm, but that’s because marketing, coordinating, pushing, advertising is hard. Super impossibly hard. Writing though? … not.)
Hi Karen, I read your words, went to look at your work here and digested your points about generations.
I agree about generational differences. For sure.
This is magic: We don’t owe anyone SHIT. We do not have to unzip our skin and bare our entire souls for the purposes of Monetizjng our Writing. Amen.
And to your con. You made me laugh. I can feel the ease with which you write. What a gift!
You didn’t ask for my advice and I have a couple of thoughts. Unsolicited advice - not appropriate here and IF you want to hear a thought I have as I think about reach and marketing, let me know. I enjoyed your smart, poignant, and funny daily updates.
That's the winning you tube formula. It gets us all into their Patreon ,the ones who do it.
"You think I'm smart,good looking and very charming and pleasant but I'm oh so lonely,no one understands me,I feel adrift in an incomprehensible world. No one (but you) gets WHO I AM.
All my girlfriends do a runner and leave me. I just can't find love. In fact,ha ha,I'm exactly like you,sign up for my Patreon please. It works . But only for pretty people. Actually we know that wealth,success and beauty don't guarantee exemption from the human condition. Just being human and alive can be a torture of existential pain but I do laugh now when some you tube charmer does the nobody understands me,I'm so lonely schtick.
Weaponised relatability.
Jane, as I read your description I kept being grateful I don’t see this version of pretty Patreon pity party. And I ingest enough content with similar themes to recognise it.
Attention grabbing and repulsive. Magnetic and soul sucking. There’s pseudo messages in there that glimmer a wee bit of valuable material.
But no. We realise we’re being groomed for the sale. A ‘theatric of nurture’ before the main act: the sell. 🤢
Weaponised relatability.
So much to consider here
Thank you Claire. One to sleep on.
This is a great post Danusia, and I'm loving the comments too. It's got me pondering about the narratives I suppress. I notice I'm hesitant to speak about my childlessness in a world dominated by motherhood narratives. I also notice, as someone else commented above, how it can be hard to share positives and successes... like how I put my autoimmune disease into remission and how I'm currently navigating menopause quite easily.... Struggles seem to make us 'relatable', successes often make us alienated due to the envy and comparisons they can evoke in others. I notice even in some of my closest female friendships I have a tendency to play down my successes.... Thanks for this thought-provoking piece, I shall take it into my day and ponder further.
I love it when people are prepared to grasp the nettles of their lives.
An insightful article that helps me reconsider a character I’m about to embark writing about.
I’m a man and can never truly understand the woman’s experience but I want to make Eliza tangible ans as authentic as possible. She deserves that.
Wow Gary this is such a hopeful note. I’m thrilled my words might help a tiny bit towards bringing Eliza what she deserves.
Lovely to meet you 🫶🏼
Likewise!
Eliza was a real woman, my great-great grandmother. Her story is almost unbelievable but true. Genealogy and digging through local newspapers has given me the framework.This is the story of a working class Victorian woman living through hard times and many setbacks to eventually discover unconditional love.
The voices of working class women of the period are illusory and I want to bring her to life, threee-dimensional.
There are rumours in the family that when a widow and in her fifties she found friendship, possibly love, with a woman of a similar age.
It is not a romance but I hope it will be a deep discovery of what it was like for spirited but constrained women of that era. Not only the events and tribulations of their outer lives but also the internal discourse of their thoughts and emotions.
If I get it right it may be as relevant today as it was back then.
I will be coming to the women in this wonderful Substack community to help me avoid the typical male tropes and descriptions. I hope I will be able to draw on your wisdom.
The title is “Eliza” but I’m not sure about the subtitle yet.
Consider me a resource. Your book sounds like a tour de force - so needed.
Have you come across Erin Shetron? I mention her as potential editing support and direction.
Thank you Danusia
And for the nod to Erin.
Danusia, I've been sharing your article left and right and wanted to pop in here again to share my reflections with you. First, THANK YOU for leading us to a refreshing new way of self-expression. I answered the reflective prompts and holy shit did it tap into some juicy memories of how I've been silenced and flat out disrespected over the years and in turn, ended up doing that to myself to be accepted. I think it'd be a potent experience to have a gathering of sorts to share our reflections, what came up for us, and how we can apply our learnings to our future writings/talks/ways of relating as humans (let me know if you wanna chat more about this). There's a rising tenor in Substack around this space being more "authentic" than other communities, yet I feel in maintaining an us/them mentality, we're repeating the same narrative in humanity that seeks to categorize and judge vs. curiously understand. Your article speaks to this in such an eloquent way that I found myself feeling both let down to find this happening here AND encouraged that I can make an impact by continuing to share more of what I desire and not conform. I'm grateful for you. 🌹