“All the women in me are tired.”

                                        “To be a woman is to perform.” 

One thing about women is that they can’t fight back without the backfire of being labeled as a “bitch” or “crazy.” If a woman fights back against a narrative that continues to be placed on her, the world responds with retaliation. This narration is reflected in books, movies, TV shows, and in music. There is no escape from what women continue to fight. From this, we can conclude that there might be no woman who hasn’t felt like she is on the edge of a breakdown. Looking down from the cliff, picturing what it would be like to fire back and scream through town that they have had enough. It’s safe to say that being a woman is to perform and act.

                                   ACT LIKE A LADY, PLEASE. 

One must act like a lady to please those around.

The phrase alone already demonstrates the unbreakable contract of what it means to be a woman in society. One must act like a lady to please those around. It’s a done deal, and they expect no complaints or arguments. A lady must dress sophisticatedly. A lady must speak with manners. For instance, don’t talk unless you are being spoken to. Ladies shall want to have a family and be a doting wife to her husband. In the end, this is why women might say or think that all the women in them are tired. We are tired. We are tired of playing not only one or two characters, but all the personas we must portray for different occasions and the people we speak to, while also keeping in mind our surrounding environments.

Behind a smile, there is hidden rage. It bubbles and builds slowly, making its way to the tips and edges of the body we are to keep chaste and pure. Women are the cursed sex. Women are created and shaped to fit the narrative that society has constructed. And the sad thing is that women try so hard to become society’s ideal narrative. Then, we also try not to care while caring, although it’s difficult to leave the idea of “caring” behind when we want to be appreciated. We want to be seen. We want to be cared for. We want to be respected. We also want to be fighters and someone who can be seen with authority. But this can’t be done when people see women in a negative light for opposing society’s construct. A woman who fights is not a fighter, a champion, or a leader. They are just rebels who are now labeled as annoying, bitchy, commanding, or a diva.

Women are created and shaped to fit the narrative that society has constructed.

This groundwork then builds up to the infamous phenomenon of the unhinged woman. Women of this trope are illustrated in movies and TV shows such as Gone Girl, Fleabag, Midsommar, Jennifer’s Body, and are depicted as, unironically, unhinged. These are the women who fight with blood, sweat, and tears to get to where they want. They are the women who have had enough and have finally done something about it. Women like Amy Dunne from Gone Girl, who is tired of her husband eclipsing her own life despite doing everything to please him, or because she has to be the “cool girl.” The “cool girl” who is willing to be the perfect image that society wouldn’t hate. A “cool girl” puts up with everything and never complains, knowing that she is pleasing others and being loved for it. 

Women are performers. We play roles for everyone, including ourselves. But at the end of the day, we don’t get an Emmy award or an Oscar. Instead, we’re awarded by side-eye stares and questioning looks for not living up to our part. It is suffocating to be constantly vigilant of one’s persona, afraid that they will unexpectedly deviate from the script handed to them. And to think that society will questions why women are so done with it all, yet continue to criticize them. 

Once a woman has come to this realization, she says “fuck it all” and sheds all pretenses, reclaiming who she had been hiding inside all along. If she is blamed, she doesn’t care.

It’s a retaliation that comes with women demanding what they know they deserve. This is not a “change”; This is the breaking point where women will realize that they’ll never be appreciated for their hard work. Once a woman has come to this realization, she says “fuck it all” and sheds all pretenses, reclaiming who she had been hiding inside all along. If she is blamed, she doesn’t care. A woman can accept that they have never done anything wrong—except to themselves. Her acting stops, and becomes what society calls a “crazy and evil woman.” Why? Because society is still not used to a woman who fights for themselves and questions everything. 

People will try to silence them, but with their honed anger and frustration, women know that they are unstoppable. Motivated by one another, women support each other’s aspirations. It is the acceptance that a woman can be both feminine and masculine with equal strength, love, care, rage, fierceness, and power. We let go of needing approval from every aspect of our lives and try to move forward. Of course it’s not an easy task—it’s one of those things that can’t be flipped on like a switch. However, the constant feeling of wariness wears away as her tears and sympathy go unnoticed. She walks away. 

So, the woman becomes her own muse. Womanhood and girlhood is an exhausting journey. It is a journey that spans over treacherous waves of anger. But after this, there is a span of peace, beckoned by the open gates of feminine ethereality. Because at the end of the day, this destination can only be discovered by the woman herself.

—Jacqueline Sandoval, Fall 2023 Staff