Am I Still Vulnerable?

Today while I was cleaning my bathroom I watched one of those YouTube videos where people get vulnerable and share stories they rarely tell, which opens the door for others to do the same. I admired those people, and it prompted me to ask, am I still being vulnerable? My young adult life has been characterized by my “coming out” about having Poland Syndrome, and vulnerability has been a key term for me the past 5 years. I remember my first (consensual) encounters with vulnerability in this aspect, telling my friends my biggest secret while my throat felt like it was closing and I was shrinking into nothingness. It literally felt like I was working out my vulnerability muscle, and overtime it became stronger. As a reward for all my hard work, my past year has been a victory lap, modeling in England and writing articles and sharing my story…but it leads me to wonder, have I been neglecting my vulnerability muscle in this time of celebration? My birth defect has played a massive role in my emotional development, but it does not encompass my entire experience. It’s almost like I’ve tried to fit my traumas into a pretty box, but all this is doing is keeping me from seeing reality. Late Tibetan Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh talked a lot about how the root of suffering derives from not recognizing that our perceptions differ from reality; have I been steering my perceptions a specific way to keep me from seeing my life for what it truly is? Have I been letting a singular experience block out other equally important aspects of my life and identity? Has my physical handicap led to an emotional one? I’m doing my best to ponder with compassion-I ask these questions to lead myself to braver places, not to make myself feel bad.

Adjacent to this observation has been my relationship with my sexual trauma. Rather than trying to make my experiences fit an inspiring narrative like I do with Poland Syndrome, I either laugh my sexual trauma off, direct hatred towards an offender, or blurt something out in a defensive manner. I went through a period where I could talk openly about my experiences, but it didn’t feel the same as when I opened up about my birth defect. I was doing my best, but I was lying to myself, hiding behind anger to avoid the pain. I know this because when I really try to talk about these experiences, I can't stop crying and my brain and body go numb. When I was in therapy, I could talk about my birth defect even if it was uncomfortable, but I could barely touch on my sexual trauma. 

Doesn’t that seem a bit unexpected, seeing as there is so much more dialogue happening about sexual assault? Perhaps my responses have something to do with how sexual assault is discussed. I’m going to take a brief tangent to talk about a book I read called Sleeping Beauties by father-and-son duo Stephen and Owen King (spoilers ahead). It’s been years since I’ve read the book, so cut me some slack, but in this fictional world, all of the sudden every woman starts forming a web over their face when they fall asleep, and they don’t wake up. They aren’t dead, and if anyone disturbs the web, they awaken in an enraged trance and go on a murderous rampage until they die. There are obvious terrifying implications of a world where every woman is permanently unconscious, and near the end of the book it is revealed that all the women of the world have been transferred to another realm where they are living in harmony, while the world of men descends into chaos. The women are then given a choice: they can either stay in their woman-only world, reproductive needs taken care of, or they can return. It’s a hard decision, but the women choose to “wake up” and return to the world of men. I find it ~interesting~ that a book so speculative about the interaction between men and women was written by two men, but the perspective is nevertheless valuable. 

The King interpretation of the segregation of the genders reminds me a lot of Separatist Feminism, derived largely from Lesbian Feminism. Now, you’ll really need to cut me some slack here because I was a Chemistry major who took a single Women and Gender Studies class in college, so I’m no expert. But the basis of Separatist Feminism is that the answer to patriarchal oppression of women is to separate and isolate women from men. I don’t feel confident to argue precisely why this philosophy is problematic, but I do recognize bits and pieces of this philosophy in contemporary mainstream feminism. Have you ever heard the phrase “I hate men” taken a little too seriously, or heard women happily react to the news that an embryo can now be formed from two egg cells because they no longer need men? Yes, these reactions are often jokes, but they are still damaging and coming from a privileged point of view.

One of my favorite classes I’ve taken was Black Feminist Thought, which opened me up to a form of feminism that I’m much more enthusiastic about. At the center of this mode of thought is intersectionality: Black women are oppressed due to their race and gender, giving them a unique experience that often alienates them from civil rights and feminist groups. Black feminists make the point that they don’t have a choice but to ally with their masculine counterparts because there is not enough power for them to fight oppressive structures alone. This is because we are all placed on a power hierarchy, where the white man is on top and the Black woman is on the bottom. White women have more power in their identity than Black women do, yet far too often they use Black women as a step stool so they can reach even higher, neglecting the needs of women they don’t align themselves with. All women are oppressed under Western patriarchy, but white women are oftentimes able to behave in ways that gain them privileges that Black women will never have access to regardless of how they behave. White women are able to hide behind their own oppression to avoid accountability for their selfish motives. This injustice forces Black women to become aware that we are all entangled in this hierarchical trap; even those with the most power, who are benefiting from this hierarchy, are stuck. What White feminists seek isn’t real liberation because none of us are liberated until we are all liberated. To many Black Feminists, the solution is all-inclusive collaboration spanning all different identities. Hostility towards men is not a viable solution to the problems we face.

***I highly recommend you learn more by reading the Combahee River Collective Statement and works by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins, and Audre Lorde.

Despite knowing all this, I find myself holding me and others back with my hostility towards men. I must be honest, this is likely due to the types of media I consume that oftentimes have separatist undertones, produced by men and women. I think that this separatism could be caused by an unwillingness to be vulnerable. That is why I’m so glad that there are people working hard to create spaces where people can talk about things that are deemed unacceptable by society. The Youtube video I linked at the beginning of this article featured men from different backgrounds talking about things that require incredible bravery to discuss, from sexual assault to anger issues to abusive parents, and it made me so grateful for the times in my life when men have felt safe enough to open up to me about their experiences with me. These moments feel extra special given that their emotions are traditionally suppressed due to external and internal pressures.

It can be difficult to balance fighting the patriarchy and giving men the compassion that they (and everyone else) deserve. Especially when men and the systems that give them power have deeply hurt you. However, as previously mentioned, we are all trapped in this hierarchical hell, and while hostility is my body’s natural response to protect me, it also prevents me from healing and collaborating with my male peers. It is also possible that a man can do something to negatively alter the way I view the world, but I can still have compassion for them. The key is that I also have compassion for myself and honor my emotions. Separatist hostility is a form of anger, and it isn't productive to bottle it up, or even to use logic to prove it unworthy of attention (I’ve tried that one way too many times). This hostility must be interrogated: I must be honest with myself and my own misperceptions of the world if I want to participate in an all-inclusive collaboration that transcends identity politics. And the most fundamental step on that journey is to practice vulnerability.