“She’s high maintenance.”
“Bitches be crazy.”
“She’s insane.”
“No drama,” heterosexual cis men demand on their dating app profiles.
To successfully snare yourself a man in 2024, you must be chaos-free. Even in the 21st century, women must be agreeable. We must acquiesce. We must be nice and calm and float along on clouds for the convenience of others. Let’s not upset our hardworking menfolk. But why?
Now, more than ever, we are told to be open with our mental health, to share our struggles. Yet in reality, to be a woman with emotion, and to, heaven forbid, voice how she feels, is deeply undesirable.
The wonderfully sharp Dr Pragya Agarwal has written a book called “Hysterical” on the engendering of emotions, which is expertly researched. I suggest everyone reads this as I cannot speak with any authority on the topic. I speak only anecdotally through my lived experience. However, since dating, I have become bewildered by how emotions are perceived so negatively that no one knows which way is up when it comes to matters of the heart.
In order to be “drama free,” you can’t actually speak your mind or your heart, because emotions are messy and irrational and tumultuous. Those things mean you must like ‘drama’. Even though no one actually likes ‘drama’. I don’t even know what we call drama? Upset? Talking about being upset? Spoiler alert – not even women like upset.
Everyone wants to be clear about everyone else’s intentions and yet if you ask that of someone, you are demanding and needy. Relationships are about vulnerability. But you cannot show you are vulnerable in anyway. You need to be honest. But not honest about how you feel. These are all deeply unattractive qualities, especially in women.
Women who want to find love and get attached are clingy. No one wants a limpet. Women who admit to wanting and enjoying sex are slutty and dirty. No one wants a slag. So what do people want? Lady on the street and a freak in the sheets. A cook in the kitchen, a maid in the parlour and a whore in the bedroom. (Please see America Ferrera’s monologue in the Barbie movie, for the most perfect articulation of the paradox of being female in the 2020s.)
The struggle of being a woman isn’t really my point here. (Although, obviously it is) What I really want to consider, and celebrate, is the glory of someone being unapologetically themselves. The beauty of being truthful and raw and generally not giving a fuck about it. There is an exhilarating joy in seeing someone be open and fallible and flawed. Being vulnerable is majestic and I am here for that and anyone who is courageous enough to be this way.
I fucking love Taylor Swift living out the pain of every break up in song. I love how she gives the middle finger to every man who fucks her over and makes a million from it. She dates who she wants, when she wants and how she wants. Go, Taylor. Fucking go!! My favourite song is Blank Space. “Got a long list of ex-lovers/ They’ll tell you I’m insane” Same, babes. Same.
I am here for writer Kirsty Loehr living and breathing her sexuality in her work and on her social media. She isn’t afraid to love being gay and to explode with the intensity of being a lesbian, with all it’s joys and heartache, for all to see.
I live for Sylvia Plath calling out her shitty dad and her even shittier husband in her poetry. Every emotion she ever felt was captured in the written word. Although her ending was tragic, the lack of fucks she gave when pouring her soul into every piece of work for the entire world to see, was beautiful and inspiring. People pretend to be cool with mental illness nowadays. People were more honest about their revulsion in the 1950s and 1960s. But Plath did not let it stop her. There she was. Talented as fuck and crazy as hell.
I adore crazy girl energy: Alanis Morrisette’s ‘You Outta Know’, Hole’s ‘Violet’ and Stevie Nicks taunting Lindsay Buckingham in ‘Silver Springs.’
“You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you” Tell him, Stevie, you mad bitch. Tell him.
I want to see more chaos in the world, not less. I want to see people love fiercely and hurt hard. I want to see people throw themselves into love. I want to see them claw and fight their way through things and to scream and shout about how hard it is and how fucking unfair life is. No one wants a Debbie Downer but I want to see people, especially women, with real heart, bearing their kaleidoscopic emotions. That is not to say we should do this at everyone’s expense. There are ways and means to be open and raw. We can be respectful whilst also spilling our guts. I am not advocating burning someone’s entire wardrobe, keying their car or sitting outside their window for months on end. There is crazy and then there is abusive and kinda illegal.
But this is how I want to world to be:
Be honest – ask for things.
Be frank – have firm boundaries.
Be hard work – don’t cave in.
Be passionate – give your whole heart.
Girls, be fearless and the right person will welcome it. If a man writes “No dramas” swipe left. Female hysteria – or as I like to call it ‘human vulnerability’ – is something to be treasured. I see you, crazy bitches, and I love you.
(Please note; Elizabeth Wurtzel’s 1998 book, ‘Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women’, provides a critique of some of history’s craziest bitches and the bad girl persona. This book was not a source of research. I last read it in 1999. This article is very much me blowing off steam. The book is worth a read and I shall dig it out again myself later)
The Jeminist 