What it's like to inhabit a female body these days.
It starts early: Sit still…be quiet…don't run —even as your imagination tries to take you on a joyride. You're told to see yourself from the outside, as he does, with the naked eye or through the camera. You’re told to turn away from yourself, turn just so. Your curated beauty is refracted by his gaze; your contortions, his pleasure. You forego food to fit into his expectations. Less is more because taste doesn't belong to you: you are the devoured.
*
In 2021 a woman in Atlantic Canada (2) needs methadone treatment to prevent relapse, but her doctor decides her body must remain a hospitable environment for the future fetus she has no intention of producing. He doesn’t listen when she tells him she doesn’t even sleep with men. There is no framework in his mind for her words: what else is a woman for but to bear fruit? Her body doesn’t belong to her; she matters in terms of what she can be made to give. When she pushes back, another doctor rescues her: he gets to decide, but at least she's safe, for now. Her body has found a benevolent supervisor.
*
You wait for the bus outside the high school with a group of boys, whose gaze slithers over you, as real as touch. One urges the other, “Grope her!” Jubilant laughter as you will yourself to shrink, to dissolve. But your feet are rooted, anchored to the spot, as the boys sketch you with invisible ink.
*
Another of us is assaulted and police advise us to watch out. We’re always watching. We organize our lives around it. We don’t take night classes or cut through parks or leave our drinks unattended. We take self-defense classes and walk confidently and carry our keys laced through our knuckles when we park in the underground. We’re all watching out, but so many of us are attacked. Are rapists natural disasters, like tornadoes? You’d think nothing can be done except prepare.
*
A young California woman charged with murder in 2019 spends sixteen months in jail awaiting trial before an advocacy group convinces a judge to dismiss the case.(3) The “victim”? Her stillborn fetus. This woman did relatively well compared to a Salvadoran woman identified as Manuela, who died two years into a 30-year prison sentence, leaving two young children.(4) She was posthumously exonerated by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which found that the pregnancy loss was caused by pre-eclampsia. A useless victory, and another judgment.
*
I've been thinking about letting myself go. I might become one of those women of a certain age who just don't seem to care. You know the ones: those women we used to feel sorry for. The plump ones with gray, unshining hair, little or no makeup. The ones who wore bright colours and seemed to inhabit themselves.
*
When we speak up, we’re told we must be mistaken. We must have misinterpreted. We’re too sensitive. He didn’t mean that. We should lighten up.
*
The eyes began to turn away with the appearance of the baby stroller, when you were in your early thirties. Now you are even less examined. Your blond privilege still holds, and you’re the right silhouette from the back, but the fifty-something face disappoints. It’s always been a devil’s bargain, and we eventually lose what currency we had. Still, we never know when we will be noticed for other uses. Survival lies in being invisible.
*
I might stop shaving , plucking, tweezing, making myself less. Stomp on the scale. Eat what I want. Speak up. Laugh with my gut. Walk at night. Not be nice. Run towards, not away. Take up space. Own my time.
*
Yet to survive we must also court the gaze: sheath dress, heels, bright swinging hair,
my younger self glides along the sidewalk, caressed by eyes, created by them, nourished.
*
I want to let myself go, then run after her—wait! I’ll catch up and step inside myself, look out at the world, rather than viewing myself from afar.
*
It can be fatal to stop trying. Dangerous for you to decide, to say this is mine and I'll do what I want with it. To say what are you looking at?
*
In 2022 Mahsa Amini dies in police custody in Iran. She was arrested for “unsuitable attire” when a lock of her hair sought the sun. (5)
*
A friend goes to Montreal for her mother’s funeral. When she travels alone, she eats at the bar with her phone to ward off men. A man sits next to her. When she rebuffs his attempts to buy her drinks, he lashes out: What the fuck is your problem? She’s pissed. Look, my mother’s funeral is tomorrow. Only then does he apologize. Like it would be okay to harass her if she weren’t attending the funeral. Like she owes him. Like he owns her.
*
When you board the bus, you always look for two adjacent vacant seats. You take the one by the window and hope no one else sits next to you, or if someone does, that it will be a woman. Some women will sit on the outer seat, perhaps so they can’t be trapped. Sometimes when a man sits next to you, he’s careful to avoid your space. Other times, he’ll spread his legs so his thigh rests along yours. You shrink, try to escape.
*
Our bodies are supervised to death. In 2012 a pregnant woman in Ireland is refused an abortion of the 17-week-old fetus she is miscarrying—because it still has a heartbeat. (6) Soon after, she no longer does. She dies of sepsis after three days of agony. "In an attempt to save a 4-month-old fetus they killed my 30-year-old daughter," says her mother. "How is that fair, you tell me?"
*
A sweet June morning on the bus downtown. I sit alone and open my magazine, settle in. A man sits next to me, repeatedly attempts conversation, even though I answer briefly then turn back to my magazine. Then, Can I ask you a question? As though he hasn’t already asked several. You can, but I won’t necessarily answer. Finally, he stops, and gets off the bus.
*
You’re young, maybe 20. You’re wearing a pink sundress that hugs your body and makes you feel good as you walk across the park, face turned to the sun, thinking about the writing assignment you’re taking a break from. A catcall from about 30 feet away. You see a man in his forties. You tell him to stop and he says, Come on, be nice about it.
Thanks to Margaret Atwood for the term "supervised body."
References
Atwood, Margaret. "Read it and Weep: Margaret Atwood on the Intimidating, Haunting Intellect of Simone de Beauvoir." Literary Hub, 8 September 2021. lithub.com/read-it-and-weep-margaret-atwood-on-the-intimidating-haunting-intellect-of-simone-de-beauvoir/.
Donkin, Karissa. "Moncton Woman Able to Resume Opioid Addiction Treatment after Birth Control Dispute with Doctor." CBC News, 24 November 2021, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/moncton-sublocade-access-update-1.6259552.
Baldwin III, Robert. “Losing a Pregnancy Could Land You in Jail in Post-Roe America.” NPR, 3 July 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/07/03/1109015302/abortion-prosecuting-pregnancy-loss.
Associated Press. “Salvadoran women, jailed for decades for miscarriages, stillbirths, warn the U.S. about abortion bans.” NBC News, 10 June 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/salvadoran-women-jailed-decades-miscarriages-stillbirths-warn-us-abort-rcna33035.
Reuters. “Events in Iran after Mahsa Amini’s arrest and death in custody.” 12 December 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/events-iran-since-mahsa-aminis-arrest-death-custody-2022-10-05/
Calamur, Krishnadev. “Pregnant Woman’s Death Sparks Abortion Debate in Ireland.” NPR, 15 November 2012, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/11/15/165238731/pregnant-womans-death-sparks-abortion-debate-in-ireland.
Janet Pollock Millar is a writer and educator living on lək̓ʷəŋən territory in Victoria, BC. Her writing has appeared in publications including Herizons, This Magazine, Pangyrus, Prairie Fire, and The Malahat Review. She works in the Writing Centre at Camosun College.
Images by Dasha Yukhymyuk
WOW! So very poignant and powerful. Thank you