Internalized Misogyny
Fish don’t know they’re wet
You get your balls from me.
That’s my mother talking. She meant it as the highest compliment and I took it as such.
You know, you’re really more like a guy than a woman.
A former five-night stand in Key West; again meant as sincere praise and accepted as such.
I love watching you out-drink the guys in this joint.
The barmaid at one of the Cleveland dives I used to live in and shoot pool as she was pouring me another drink. We toasted.
The messages are murky water we swim in from the time we can understand words. Maybe before.
I’ll never forget how Daddy’s face fell when he got the call from Gramudder (Mom’s mother who was at the hospital with her for the birth of my youngest sister because Dads didn’t go for that kind of thing in those days) saying “It’s another girl”. He looked like someone had just kicked him in the stomach. His fourth daughter; no more tries. He wasn’t going to ever have a son.
When Mom and our new little sister, Jody, came home from the hospital Daddy stood by the bassinet and said, “We’ll call her Jo”.
Jody grew up mowing the lawn, helping paint the house as well as putting up and taking down the storm windows…
