The Benign Pains of Womanhood - both personally and as a collective.

p.s. it is written from a binary lens due to my personal experience but in no way is trying to erase the experience of those that are non-binary.

As a kid my dad once said I am someone who seems to be destined to feel a lot of pain and have a lot of the hard things come first in life in order to pave way for the good. I didn't entirely believe him but as I continued living my life, his theory seems to be correct so far. However, in that span of time I have grown to become very familiar with pain. I enjoy things that evoke painful feelings within myself whether it's through music or through movies because to me, pain is comfort and when life feels more peaceful, it simultaneously feels boring.

Pain has become my longest friend in which I have learnt the ins and outs of the way it operates within me and I navigate life in a way to protect myself from feeling it further whilst also frequently dipping into it, to remind myself the very thing that has always stuck by my side. I live life like I'm a constant work in progress with no hopes for perfection, only for a "A+ for effort" but as I am older and embedding myself into this world more and more, I have taken on the idea of collective pain and I feel that very deeply as well. I recently read an essay called 'the pain gap' by Rayne Fisher-Quann who address 'the benign psychohorror's of womanhood' and discusses the imbalance of power dynamics between men and woman especially when it comes to age. However, I have been thinking a lot about the other areas of pain in which men and women have gaps in too.

I think benign is the perfect word to describe the pain women encounter every single day of their lives in which we are built with so much pain within us, both mental and physical that we just 'deal with.'

I think a lot about those tiktok videos where men try menstrual cramp simulators and by pain level 4, they are doubling over and yelping in pain whilst all the women get to level 10 and go "oh yep, there it is." The quote from fleabag "women are born with pain built in. it is our physical destiny" stays true to my mind every single day but what is even more maddening is that the patriarchy pushes those boundaries even further than our physical destiny and bestows it upon us. Female birth control comes with a list of side effects in the form of a small booklet and tricks our brains into thinking we are pregnant when we're on it. The insertion process of the IUD has no form of anaesthetic despite it being a very traumatic process for many people. The completely unrealistic beauty standards that has driven women to do extensive cosmetic procedures that some times end up in either life threatening or life ending situations. These are only a few situations in which physical pain is endured by women in an attempt to find a compromise with the patriarchy even though the halfway point looks more like 10/90.

I was in the hospital today as I wasn't feeling too good and as I sat on my third hour with no water and no food in my system I was feeling very faint. The water machine in the waiting room was broken and therefore I was shuffling around on the bench I was sat on due to nausea. A straight white man in his 50s/60s was sat on the end of the same bench and towards the last hour goes "oh would you stop moving for god's sake" and at this point I was tired and was not having any of it. I told him "just move to the bench next to you, its empty and won't move" and he goes "no just stop moving". At this point I go off on him and says "we're all here because we're ill, if you have a problem, just move" and he goes "oh behave yourself" in the most disgustingly patronising, dehumanising, condescending tone. I stormed off as I was one second away from causing a big scene but then I started hysterically crying. Clearly I was exhausted but I was absolutely furious. It wasn't about the bench but the way I was talked to. Once again the harsh reality of being a young woman was slapping me in the face almost as if to say "don't get too comfortable."

The patriarchy build men up to think they can get what they want, do what they want and say what they want just because. Their power is built on the very benign pain we feel every single day and during the situations when that pain becomes a serious threat? That is just the patriarchy reaffirming its power and unfortunately the very people the patriarchy has built up is the very thing that has the power to dismantle this broken system because it will take the rest of us the longer route to get there.

Nicole

'the pain gap' by Rayne Fisher-Quann https://internetprincess.substack.com/p/the-pain-gap

*in which the title is a reference to their essay