"A nuclear family can destroy a woman artist. I'd always known that. But I'd never suspected how easily I'd fall into one anyway."
The first thing that intrigued me about LIARS is all the ways in which a modern marriage between two liberated NYC artists can fall right into the patterns of exploitation of a traditional marriage, in a way that is tricky and maybe impossible to resist. The mis-match of expectation between a man expecting to become a husband and a woman expecting to become a wife is just... the first thing that's intriguing, I guess, is how a man can expect a woman to want to become a wife. Or maybe how he thinks he can trick her and then bind her into it. They must know, on some level, that they want a servant, a caregiver, a subordinate. Right? Themen who want that must know they want it. They know and they expect women to cooperate with this dream, or at least *a* woman--all they need is one woman. Or at least one woman at a time.
And of course, women fall into it. The reasons are economic, cultural, even biological--your hormones make you fall in love with the wrong man. Your body engenders a child and makes you sacrifice to keep it alive even when your husband refuses to pay attention, or care, or even make an effort to *not* feed your child dangerous doses of medication and foods they're allergic to. Love traps you. You love him, and so must stay and take care of him, because he can't be trusted to do his own laundry, after all, and once you're paired up with him his dirty laundry ruins your reputation and his poor work is a hit on your finances. You love the child, and so you must agree to stop your career and stop making art, because you know you can't trust your husband to prioritze the child over his own desires. If you don't sacrifice, the child will suffer.
One of the most important things anyone can know about domestic abuse, I think, is something I learned from WHY DOES HE DO THAT? by Lundy Bancroft: abusers abuse their victims because it gets them what they want. They don't have to do their own laundry because they make their victims feel like shit until the victim does the laundry. They don't have to do any of the unpleasant parts of raising their own children, because they signal to their wives that they will simply let the child suffer rather take care of it, leaving her trapped by love into doing every bit of that labor. They take time, money, and labor from their victims in a way that materially benefits them, and they don't reciprocate. Instead, they threaten and abuse. And it works. Abusers learn their habits because it works. It gets them clean laundry and healthy children. It gets them what they want.
It doesn't get them a happy partner. But luckily for them, they don't want that. So.
Those two sides of the situation. One person takes and the other gives. Not two sides that are equally dysfunctional--selfishness will always rank lower than love, I think. But two sides that both trap people. It's a bitter story.
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