The breakfast room is light and airy exposing a Cornish sky that can't make up its mind. Across the room, a nice, middle-class couple are wrestling a small girl who is just finding her voice. There is a lot of wriggling, a lot of shushing, and a lot of apologising for the noise as the small child struggles to assert herself. As I watch the tiny human woman fight for agency, it strikes me that we spend our first 18 years being told to be quiet and behave, and the rest of our lives answering the call to find our true voices again. A societal paradox, where we impose our collective responsibilities onto our children while pursuing the dogma of individualism ourselves. There has to be a middle way.
Wednesday, 6 March 2019
What it Feels Like For A Girl
The breakfast room is light and airy exposing a Cornish sky that can't make up its mind. Across the room, a nice, middle-class couple are wrestling a small girl who is just finding her voice. There is a lot of wriggling, a lot of shushing, and a lot of apologising for the noise as the small child struggles to assert herself. As I watch the tiny human woman fight for agency, it strikes me that we spend our first 18 years being told to be quiet and behave, and the rest of our lives answering the call to find our true voices again. A societal paradox, where we impose our collective responsibilities onto our children while pursuing the dogma of individualism ourselves. There has to be a middle way.
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