Tag: patriarchy

Othering Me, Othering You Is This The Best We Can Do?

I completed my MSc Counselling and Psychotherapy – Contemporary Creative Approaches in August 2023 with a research project called Othering Me, Othering You – My Living Experience of Internalised Patriarchy. I’m going to share the following sections from my dissertation in this post: definition of terms, introduction, and conclusion. If you’d like me to send you the dissertation or have a conversation about setting up creative workshops to uncover hidden biases with compassion, please email me.

image shows a wall with 2 canvas paintings and 8 pieces of paper with drawings on them: a heart with 2 people inside, a person with their head inside a cloud with the word "worry" in it and the word "othering" written on the paper, a large multi coloured heart, two spirals - red and blue, a series of black circles, a pink triangle, a red circle with black spikes surrounding it with yellow outside of the black and green in the corners of the image, a diagram with colour coded lines leading to bits of paper, a collage with the words "would I have known where to start without this?" written on.

Some of my creative outputs from my research that I analysed for themes

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I Am Loving Her Now

Just sit and be still;

Meagre sounds compete with massive silence.

Giving myself to it in a different way now,

Yet tinges of teenage angst touch me with cold, sad fingers,

And I need to grieve for her,

For the self who ate to feel love,

Then purged to rid shame,

Over and over and over.

For her unwavering measurement of worth

Taken in the flatness of her tummy,

As she cast her critical eye in the mirror,

And carefully counted out 200 sit ups.

Her daily prescriptions created control,

With love nowhere to be seen.

And I am loving her now.

I am opening my arms to her,

Telling her,

Showing her

She is enough,

Loved,

Worthwhile,

Wonderful,

Creative,

And I love her.

I love her awkward shyness

And her brash, loud ‘big I am’,

Her need for solitude

And to play childish games,

I love her intelligence,

Often missed at school,

And I love her big heart that still can love the people who hurt her,

That ability to empathise,

And imagine;

I love her desire to be markedly different,

And her longing to belong,

Her ways of experimenting with clothes,

And gentle rebellions.

And I love her because there’ll never be another like her,

So my heart squeezes tears from my eyes

When I see her try to take her life.

And I whisper to the family dog,

Who wakes up the parents,

Who take her to hospital,

Where she is stitched up by a nurse with no compassion.

And I gently blow love into her

And walk with her all the way to now.

We are together.

Together we sit 

And ease ourselves into the massive silence.

So Much More

I wish I fitted into my brown trousers comfortably.

But I don’t.

I wish I could love this fat body.

But I don’t.

And who is the I in this case?

Small I soaked in patriarchal values.

Sexist.

Racist.

Ableist.

All the ists exist in this I

That has narrow eyes,

Pursed lips,

Calculates and demands,

Constructs beliefs from spurious evidence

So it can fold in on itself with narcissistic glee.

A smirk twitches the corner of its lips

As it caves into itself with denigration.

The other I watches,

Curious,

Loving,

And sees without judgement

The games played,

The means manipulated,

And utters a simple phrase,

“That makes sense,”

As her gaze

Casts wider 

Into the contexts

That pattern themselves restrictive

For all involved.

She breathes deep and long,

Appreciates the battles

With self,

With others,

With the world,

Feels the sharp sadness spike her heart,

Sheds soft, soft tears

That roll and tickle their way

To her throat

Where a hatch opens,

A tiny hand reaches out

To catch the rain,

So beautiful in the sunlight

That dapples into the darkness,

Touches the pipes

That begin to warm

So she can make the sounds of love.

She sings

Of warmth

And beauty 

And rage

And soon the I’s are soothed into remembering:

There is more than this.

Always.

So much more.

Square Dots #1: sexism and dinero

Square Dots #1
Acrylic on canvas
12 x 12 in
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