I greatly resent the indignity of having the complexity of my emotional landscape and character reduced to a clumsy metaphor involving a pretzel.
). This does not make it impossible that a pattern of abuse existed, but it does mean we should not assume it likely did, both out of respect for the narrative presented by the woman and to avoid groundlessly smearing her former partner. But also because mischaracterizing carelessness or nastiness as abuse minimizes the seriousness of actual abuse.
The prevalence of this way of framing female experience is such that even the lives of women who did not choose to present themselves as such are recast in these terms. Blonde, the recent Marilyn Monroe biopic, featured barely a scene where the actress was not crying or distraught. I understand that this is an attempt to articulate her complexity in the language of today. But portrayals of famous men which attempt to articulate their depth of character do not foreground vulnerability.
Ultimately though, I’m a woman, and my real issue here is with what this kind of writing says about women, and what we do, and how we act. This is encompassed by a phrase from Kaplan’s essay: “The ability to bend an inch at a time while seeming to stand up straight is a useful and gendered skill. Most women I know do it regularly. They bend until they’re pretzeled and then blame themselves for the body aches.
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