Will it ever get easier? The relationship between women and their money? And whose money is it to begin with?
I think about the dear reality that my Father is a banker. That I had nothing to do with that.
That he opened a savings account for me from a very young age and has monitored what I earn and what I spend from adolescence on. The majority of myself is grateful for this, for I have acute awareness that not all children were provided financial means or guidance.
I think about the man who helped me open a French bank account today. That I had everything to do with that.
That the creating of a reciprocal, close relationship with another person was fully in my control. And his assistance in translating with a foreign banker to transport money I earned elsewhere to use it how I wish is something I’m grateful for.
It’s a complex situation, so why did it feel so vain?
As a child. As an expatriate. As a woman… Does guilt follow us everywhere we go?
I realized that there is something to be said for the intrinsic need for help when you are helpless. Controlled circumstances in this world are sparse, especially when you don’t have the social or economical privilege of an adult man. I think this is a truth I think all women face pretty early on.
Does asking and receiving help from men, voluntary or not, make us sadistic? Evil? Smart?
Have we ever really had a choice?
Every woman I know has had to come to a place of fraught acceptance with their existence. Physically, fiscally and socially. Whether our presence provokes rejection or pleasure. Whether we are too big or too small,
too loud or too quiet
too smart or too dumb.
Making the decision to commodify this label gives us a little power back from the amount of luck we were given in the chromosome lottery. And to be honest, it is pretty satisfying.
Because to some degree, aren’t all women are objectified or sexualized? Shouldn’t we utilize on our own terms? I’m not so sure.
I love attention. I love honing it and scaling it and creating it in others and myself.
I want to be utilized and compensated for my full capacity as a person. Not just a shell or place holder. To earn attention. Credibility. Respect. I want to not be reliant on someone else’s capability to communicate because of their sex or age. I want to be free.
Guilt is the least productive emotion I can think of.
Gratitude is the lightest.
So my question is: when can a woman become a human?
And how do we keep our girlhood?