Save yourself
Autonomous Women
“Save yourself, girl. No one is coming to save you.”
I grow more and more convinced that there is nothing more revolutionary than a woman who decides to live life on her own terms, centering the relationship she has with herself as the most important one she has or ever will have.
In this patriarchal world. Even though it’s changing, this notion that women should exist to serve men and children and find their meaning and purpose in them. In exchange for being taken care of.
Existing for herself—
Not her children—
Not her husband—
Both can leave. The former hopefully will. The latter, always a possibility in this country of 2/3 of marriages ending in divorce.
I realize my emerging and ever growing sense of self-respect lies squarely in that I am solvent and self-sufficient.
I earn my own salary and I pay my own bills and live alone. I handle shit. Though, I am single and childless and celibate.
I no longer cater to men’s egos or tiptoe around, what I’ll say to a male partner.
I am so thankful I had the brains and the persistence, the resilience to get my doctorate, to be able to earn my own money.
I am not wealthy but I can and do support and take care of myself. I am autonomous.
I am so thankful I am independent in a way my mother could never be and economically sufficient in ways that many women—even today—are not.
Charlotte Perkins Gilmans was fucking right.