Obviously, anyone reading this should have read her story in Harper's Magazine first, but just to keep up with the times here’s my trigger warning: *Spoiler Alert.*
This is an insightful short story by Cathrine Lacey, layered with meaning, it reads and reads and reads into our society. A woman lies alone in a median, hoping it's not her, begging herself for it not to be her. She doesn’t want to be the cause of this one-sided gender tug-of-war. She doesn’t want to be part of the glut of emasculation. I don’t think she wants to be defended. I don’t even know if she wants to be in a safe place. If you’re lying in a boulevard median, surrounded by orange cones set up by a woman with an agenda wearing a helmet, are you in a safe place?
It’s so clever of Lacey to choose a median for her character’s resting place, somewhere we shouldn’t lay down. But here we lie, in the middle of NO MAN’s land, pegging our husbands while demi-semi-academics continue deconstructing and simultaneously worshipping gender/cultural study interpretations of existence. And maybe I shouldn’t comment, maybe I haven’t “had enough revelations while cooking and cleaning and peeking out of the window between split blinds?” Maybe I should sit my white, cis, hetero, as-yet-unpegged ass in the car like that woman’s husband? Isn’t there a better place for me too? Oops. I didn’t mean to say that. If I take the blame for my accidental offense, can I claim my accidental pun? If pretend outrage is constantly validated how can we ever move anywhere better?
The end.
Forgive me, the blog moves from response to personal journaling now, but I still feel compelled to post this part too, so I will. I purposefully won’t cross it out now that I’ve stated I’m compelled to post it, plus I’ve been reading and re-reading Notes From Underground because my reading group wants to read a chapter a week, so I re-read the book every week, and now I doubly won't cross it out.
My interpretation: This is Lacey’s response to the entire cultural milieu she finds herself in. I think she started with the sexual cultural milieu--including, the #metoo movement, the gender identity interpretation of everything, the public shaming epidemic, the developments in pronouns--and let her words roll into the Church, workout culture, and the boring safety of family units constructed in a bygone era.
Who is She? She is the woman at the center of the entire movement being conducted in her name. She is the harassed coworker. She is an abused teenager. She is an exploited Hollywood actress. She is the 70 cents for every male dollar office worker. She is the twitter-handle shouting censorship. She is an academic lecturing about intolerance. She is the demi-academic becoming intolerant about intolerance. (She is also the molested Catholic schoolboy, but holds herself back with a “Reel it back in, Bucko.") She is the victim.
She doesn’t want to be this woman. She doesn’t want to be the cause of this question on "park benches, brick walls, the bottom of cans of beans, and every public library bathroom stall." The question's omnipresence indicates how ubiquitous gender-based interpretations have become. It paints itself onto everything, onto everything in her neighborhood, and everything in our culture.
She was walking away from this previous model we have for family values. This boring, old, corrupt model of social structure that is so clearly flawed. She knows she has to blow it up and she doesn’t want to blow it up. She knows she has to divorce our old values, and she doesn’t know what else to do.
So she uses a median as her analogy for where we are as a culture. The middle of a dangerous road where we shouldn’t be crossing, but not only do we cross, we lay down.
There has to be somewhere better we can go as a culture.
This is an insightful short story by Cathrine Lacey, layered with meaning, it reads and reads and reads into our society. A woman lies alone in a median, hoping it's not her, begging herself for it not to be her. She doesn’t want to be the cause of this one-sided gender tug-of-war. She doesn’t want to be part of the glut of emasculation. I don’t think she wants to be defended. I don’t even know if she wants to be in a safe place. If you’re lying in a boulevard median, surrounded by orange cones set up by a woman with an agenda wearing a helmet, are you in a safe place?
It’s so clever of Lacey to choose a median for her character’s resting place, somewhere we shouldn’t lay down. But here we lie, in the middle of NO MAN’s land, pegging our husbands while demi-semi-academics continue deconstructing and simultaneously worshipping gender/cultural study interpretations of existence. And maybe I shouldn’t comment, maybe I haven’t “had enough revelations while cooking and cleaning and peeking out of the window between split blinds?” Maybe I should sit my white, cis, hetero, as-yet-unpegged ass in the car like that woman’s husband? Isn’t there a better place for me too? Oops. I didn’t mean to say that. If I take the blame for my accidental offense, can I claim my accidental pun? If pretend outrage is constantly validated how can we ever move anywhere better?
The end.
 |
| My patch of median. |
Forgive me, the blog moves from response to personal journaling now, but I still feel compelled to post this part too, so I will. I purposefully won’t cross it out now that I’ve stated I’m compelled to post it, plus I’ve been reading and re-reading Notes From Underground because my reading group wants to read a chapter a week, so I re-read the book every week, and now I doubly won't cross it out.
My interpretation: This is Lacey’s response to the entire cultural milieu she finds herself in. I think she started with the sexual cultural milieu--including, the #metoo movement, the gender identity interpretation of everything, the public shaming epidemic, the developments in pronouns--and let her words roll into the Church, workout culture, and the boring safety of family units constructed in a bygone era.
Who is She? She is the woman at the center of the entire movement being conducted in her name. She is the harassed coworker. She is an abused teenager. She is an exploited Hollywood actress. She is the 70 cents for every male dollar office worker. She is the twitter-handle shouting censorship. She is an academic lecturing about intolerance. She is the demi-academic becoming intolerant about intolerance. (She is also the molested Catholic schoolboy, but holds herself back with a “Reel it back in, Bucko.") She is the victim.
She doesn’t want to be this woman. She doesn’t want to be the cause of this question on "park benches, brick walls, the bottom of cans of beans, and every public library bathroom stall." The question's omnipresence indicates how ubiquitous gender-based interpretations have become. It paints itself onto everything, onto everything in her neighborhood, and everything in our culture.
She was walking away from this previous model we have for family values. This boring, old, corrupt model of social structure that is so clearly flawed. She knows she has to blow it up and she doesn’t want to blow it up. She knows she has to divorce our old values, and she doesn’t know what else to do.
So she uses a median as her analogy for where we are as a culture. The middle of a dangerous road where we shouldn’t be crossing, but not only do we cross, we lay down.
There has to be somewhere better we can go as a culture.
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