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From dystopia to feminist utopia

Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults
Forfatter: Laurie Penny
Forlag: Bloomsbury Circus (Storbritannia)
Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults describes our dystopian world where women's struggle is more important than ever. Penny's book hits my feminist vein after I recently experienced a life transformation. 




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

The author, feminist and journalist Laurie Penny (b. 1986) opens Bitch Doctrine (2017) with: "In case you hadn't noticed, there's a war on." In light of Donald Trump being elected president of the world's most powerful country, she writes unmasked, crude and aggressive about gender, sexism, power and violence in a world where women's struggles are more important than ever. Her sharp words describe the capitalist, patriarchal and fascist society we are forced to live in, where "toxic masculinity is killing the world" ..
Bitch Doctrine is divided into eight chapters, each with its own essays. I swallow into her rage and have a smile on her mouth for every word I read. I have never before experienced such an agreement with a writer. In particular, there are two chapters that capture me ("Love and Other Chores" and "Agency"), in which she raises taboos on the themes of love and pregnancy – something I have recently experienced and used a lot of thinking on. I get overwhelmed as I turn page after page and think: Finally someone who dares to write about this!

Women can't get everything

By "everything", Penny means marriage, children and career. And she's absolutely right. She writes that if we prioritize careers first, we are too self-absorbed. If we prioritize children, we are too lazy. If we try both, we are unable to devote our family and career to our full attention. Furthermore, she writes about the widespread baby trend in the western world, and I couldn't agree more – never before have I seen so many pregnant women!
My biological clock was ticking, well influenced by pregnant girlfriends who had children in cabins and weather. I just wanted to get pregnant and felt unsuccessful as a woman without a girlfriend and a child. Because as Penny so elegantly writes, "Today, whatever else we are, women are still taught that we have failed if we are not loved by men." i love very much. But what was supposed to be the starting point for a beautiful sunshine story was instead a painful nightmare played out in slow motion.

Life and the road to marriage

My pregnancy was the worst I have ever experienced in my 27 years of life. Why didn't anyone tell me about the negative and life-threatening aspects of pregnancy? It wasn't exactly rosy, as Instagram and the community present it. It was six months of nausea, bleeding, anxiety, stress and anger. I felt trapped and claustrophobic in my own body. I had low placenta, which resulted in premature birth. Fortunately, my daughter did well, which I am very grateful and happy for, but things could have gone very wrong – both with me and her. In addition, I was in an unhealthy partnership. My fiancé never had time for me, but prioritized his own career and friends. Penny writes: "Young men are not worried about how to achieve a work-life balance [...] but when commentators talk about women's balance between [the same relationship], they don't talk about how much time a woman wants at the end of the day to work on their memoirs, travel around the world or spend time with their friends. 'Life' for women is assumed to be a long road towards marriage. "Life," for men, is meant to be greater than that. "

The pregnancy wasn't exactly rosy, as Instagram and the community present it.

Here she is absolutely right. I myself felt locked in the relationship I was in, at the same time as I felt unsuccessful as a result of the challenges I had associated with my own pregnancy. "It must be the most natural and wonderful thing in the world!" said friends and family to me all the time. On top of it all, my fiance left me in a city where even the green man in the traffic lights holds his girlfriend's hand.

The shame and the ideal

I am ashamed that I was abandoned by my husband, that I failed to complete a pregnancy, over the scar after the Caesarean section, that I had to roll the pram alone and that I was not going to wear my wedding dress. As my mother said, "I who was looking forward to seeing you in white." I am sorry to have to disappoint you, my mom, the community and not least – my partner. I am sorry not to be able to fulfill the ideals of "how to be the perfect woman".

In the midst of despair and grief, my daughter was the force that kept me up.

From dystopia to utopia

I know about the biological injustice between men and women. I wonder what it would be like if the roles could be reversed and my partner was pregnant? As Penny writes: “If men became pregnant, pregnancy and childbirth would not be rejected as 'natural' but viewed as heroic acts of sacrifice. If men became pregnant, having a baby tummy would not be a shame. Men wanted to showcase their stretch marks and Caesarean scar that [proudly] wound after battle. ”

'' Life 'for women is assumed to be a long road to marriage. "Life," for men, is meant to be greater than that. " Laurie Penny

In Penny's and my own feminist utopia, men and women will be equal – both biologically and socially. In our time the idea of ​​a better world seems far away, but it is now important that we imagine other possible worlds and find a way to get there. It is our job to fight the women's liberation struggle further and not give up until we have achieved feminist utopia.

Pinar Ciftci
Pinar Ciftci
Ciftci is a journalist and actor.

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