I‘ve had a reason to celebrate lately!
I faced the meanest monster. I have fought my demons for now. For a little while. Oh, now that I think about it too much, I tend to think that maybe I am a bit too happy, because life just keeps being a mess.
But still – I thought I had had something to celebrate, and so I watched the most famous movie combination of this summer and went to see „Barbie“ and “Oppenheimer” in one day.
Since the main point of the „Barbie“-movie surprised me in its honesty, I have since been thinking about my own experience of having been born with a uterus.
How would I summarize that?
And don‘t get me wrong here. Without spoiling the movie, I want to state that I also fully felt the words that were chosen there.
But what are mine?
It‘s worth to think about.
How does carrying a uterus and a vagina feel?
While discussing something like this, I am on very thin ice. Many important situations are subjective and difficult to proof, and can even be those that you readers not experienced, or not in the same ways I did.
But isn’t it still worth mentioning them?
My words, as I had to realize soon enough, are painful ones. So, my precious reader, if you do not want to read about pain, receiving it and causing it in any physical or emotional way, including all the parts of body soul, then stop reading this post right here. A mention of suicide also lies ahead, so be aware. Thank you!
So, this running around with a uterus thing …
There are so many reasons for women to accept pain. It‘s a classical response to being seen as not as strong physically as men. „We give birth“ seems to be a popular argument in this matter, and although with a true core, this perspective on having a uterus has been very painful for me when I was younger.
Because it glorifies being in pain.
It celebrates having the most sensitive part of your body torn apart.
Many things in the life of a uterus-carrying being are being compared to this one purpose you seem to have. Giving birth! Giving life! Leave your life and yourself behind and putting all your energy into someone else! Become this mother-creature!
Cut your fingertip off with a kitchen knife?
„Stop crying, you will be in so much more pain one day.“
Having your first period cramps ever?
„Just wait for what‘s gonna come soon.“
Trying too big a tampon as still a virgin?
„How do you think baby heads are ever gonna fit through there?“
While all of that is already cruel enough, the real problem is an even bigger one.
In my experience, among many (not all, maybe not even the most but still too many) cisgender women, it is impossible to talk about rape and abuse.
It is as if there is no vocabulary for that, because these creatures have built their whole identity around the pain of giving birth. There is no concept of not wanting to be in pain. Of wanting to be whole. Any attempt to wish for your own body not to get hurt and to keep its integrity is being laughed off. A person demanding that is called childish and sensitive.
Because, you know, women give birth, and if the baby is too big they might give you an episiotomy, and what are you gonna do then. Cry?
And then there is laughter,
Laughter that tears souls apart.
Being born with a uterus and having to get used to the reality of having a vagina with you all the fucking time you‘re on this earth is also bound to another reality:
Terrifying metal instrument are allowed to rape you at least once a year to check if everything is alright with you, and while I totally see how great and important it is to spot all kinds of cancer early enough, this is still something no one ever asked for or had the chance to choose.
You just have to live with it.
With a body that is so loaded with pain.
When I was younger, I often wanted to kill myself because I had a uterus, and I got close to succeeding.
A friend mentioning a doctors visit?
A random woman-health-awareness-post in the timeline?
Any of these things could cause me to break down.
The only moment it ever felt good in was when having sex, and I won‘t go into detail here about what kind of chaos that caused.
So, to summarize it all: Having a uterus to me means constantly being in pain and having no way to speak out against it, while everyday and everywhere being confronted with it. With your most sensitive piece of skin being ripped open and torn apart.
And you‘re just expected to take it, and to never complain.
I have recently told my mother that I often experience how disrespectful certain kinds of penis-carriers still get when a uterus-carrier explains something to them.
I work in a museum and men constantly have to deal with me knowing more about science related topics than they do, at least in that setting for the next 90 minutes, and also how I sometimes shudder over the disrespect they show to other uterus-carriers, as in their co-workers or wives. It is always a riddle to me how those women can stand those men coming around after not having listened to me explaining how a certain device worked, then taking it from them and using it wrong, while explaining absolute nonsense to them and ignoring me as I try to guide them into not breaking something.
It is not something that happens everyday, but now and then.
What shocked me though was the response I got from my mother.
She reminded me that adult women have the ability to be above things and just ignore men.
So, even in case of this undeserved humiliation, I am supposed to just swallow it? To never fight back? To just let the wrong in the world win?
If that is growing up, I will stay a child forever.
I don‘t like being a woman very much.
I still identify as a cisgender woman, it simply makes me unhappy.
So, when “Barbie” was called “Reality-challenged woman”, I wanted to change my writing name to that.
Mistress witch writes 