Things are being said that I have never consciously thought about before. Things are being overthrown. Why, for instance, do we shave our legs? Wear lipstick? Dress up in slinky clothing? Alter our shapes?
What is wrong with us the way we are?
It’s Jody asking these questions, one of the other painters. She does not dress up or alter her shape. She wears workboots, and striped coveralls, one leg of which she hauls up to show us the real leg underneath, which is defiantly, resplendently hairy. I think of my own cowardly, naked legs, and feel brainwashed, because I know I cannot go all the way. I draw the line at armpits. What is wrong with us the way we are is men.
Many things are said about men. Two of these women have been raped, for instance. One has been beaten up. Others have been discriminated against at work, passed over or ignored; or their art has been ridiculed, dismissed as too feminine. Others have begun to compare their salaries with those of men, and have found them to be less.
I have no doubt that all of these things are true. Rapists exist, and those who molest children and strangle girls. They exist in the shadows, like the sinister men who lurk in ravines, not one of whom I have ever seen. They are violent, wage wars, commit murders. They do less work and make more money. They shove the housework off on women.
They are insensitive and refuse to confront their own emotions. They are easily fooled, and wish to be: for instance, with a few gasps and wheezes they can be conned into thinking they are sexual supermen. There are giggles of recognition over this. I begin to wonder if I’ve been faking orgasm without knowing it.
But I am on shaky ground, in this testifying against men, because I live with one. Women like me, with a husband, a child, have been referred to with some scorn as
These meetings are supposed to make me feel more powerful, and in some ways they do. Rage can move mountains. In addition, they amaze me: it’s shocking, and exciting, to hear such things emerging from the mouths of women. I begin to think that women I have thought were stupid, or wimps, may simply have been hiding things, as I was.
But these meetings also make me nervous, and I don’t understand why. I don’t say much, I am awkward and uncertain, because whatever I do say might be the wrong thing. I have not suffered enough, I haven’t paid my dues, I have no right to speak. I feel as if I’m standing outside a closed door while decisions are being made, disapproving judgments are being pronounced, inside, about me. At the same time I want to please.
Sisterhood is a difficult concept for me, I tell myself, because I never had a sister. Brotherhood is not. I work at night, when Sarah is asleep, or in the early morning. Right now I am painting the Virgin Mary. I paint her in blue, with the usual white veil, but with the head of a lioness. Christ lies in her lap in the form of a cub. If Christ is a lion, as he is in traditional iconography, why wouldn’t the Virgin Mary be a lioness? Anyway it seems to me more accurate about motherhood than the old bloodless milk-and-water Virgins of art history. My Virgin Mary is fierce, alert to danger, wild. She stares levely out at the viewer with her yellow lion’s eyes. A gnawed bone lies at her feet.
I paint the Virgin Mary descending to the earth, which is covered with snow and slush. She is wearing a winter coat over her blue robe, and has a purse slung over her shoulder. She’s carrying two brown paper bags full of groceries. Several things have fallen from the bags: an egg, an onion, an apple. She looks tired.