It’s upsetting and revealing for me at the same time, what I go through when I write these. I often recognize junctures in my life that resonate exactly, choices to make, paths to avoid, compromises made.
I do my best to stay observant from an objective stance, yet I realize in the mere fact it is me writing? Already it says what it is.
Our content is curated by the outer limits of our cages.
I like the powerful excavation of history’s double-bind: the woman who must disguise her identity to make it visible. Bravo, LaMonica!
Reading this, I’m impressed you really knew how to emphasise the eerie continuity between Sand’s strategic gender erasure and the performative contortions women still navigate today, though now it’s often less about trousers and pseudonyms, and more about tone-policing and brand calibration. George Sand had to strip herself of “the feminine” to be heard; today, women are told to lean into it, so long as it’s palatable, polished, profitable. Same gate. Different dress code.
You rightly point to Inanna as method, not metaphor . Every descent strips a layer (crown, name, voice) until a woman is reduced to what the patriarchy finds least threatening: her silence. But Sand turned that silence into syntax. Her refusal wasn’t loud, it was precise. Like Inanna, she returned from the underworld, but left the myth shattered in her wake.
A parallel comes to mind: the Japanese concept of kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with gold, the fracture made more visible, not less. Sand’s fractured public image — woman, man, intellectual, romantic — became a vessel for something stronger than seamless acceptance: resilience rendered bright. She gilded the breaks of her voice, she didn’t mask it.
George Sand entered the conversation by altering its acoustics. The true defiance wasn’t that she wrote as a man, but that she kept writing as herself once the mask was torn off. Inclusion. And also infiltration.
She didn’t ask to be a muse or martyr. She asked to be read. And she still is.
May we all descend with purpose and return with proof!
Yes, well said. I appreciate your time in reading this. It seems to be always a return to the sum of the parts being greater than the whole, for without those experiences the expanse of what one might become, the potential energy v. the kinetic energy through movement and conflict, would not reveal itself. I think this is where the patriarchal system would step in and say, “See? This is how it is meant to make you better!” to which we answer, “Ah, but if only we could see how much we could be without all the extra counter effort involved!”
Therein lies the bitter irony, the system injures, then applauds your endurance as proof of its necessity.
It’s the classic sleight of hand, break her wings, then celebrate the strength it took to crawl. Patriarchy loves to reframe resistance as refinement as if what doesn’t kill you makes you grateful. But as you point out, the true tragedy is more the bruises of conflict, it’s all about the untapped brilliance of a life lived without having to first survive someone else’s scaffolding.
Imagine a George Sand who didn’t have to disguise herself, who could have moved directly from thought to voice without first stripping herself at seven metaphorical gates. Would she have been more? Or simply freer to become sooner?
Potential energy becomes kinetic through movement, yes… but what elegance, what speed, what sheer force we might witness if women weren’t always running with sandbags strapped to their names!!!
So no, dear patriarchy, we’re not thanking you for the character you forged. We’re mourning what you cost……..
Wow! This was wonderful. I have a new hero. It’s crazy that society, even, French society, held these views, what with Joan of Arc, Lady Liberty, French Queens…thanks for another outstanding piece of work LaMonica!
So interesting... and shocking too, to be reminded of such women and the world they had to endure.
It’s upsetting and revealing for me at the same time, what I go through when I write these. I often recognize junctures in my life that resonate exactly, choices to make, paths to avoid, compromises made.
I do my best to stay observant from an objective stance, yet I realize in the mere fact it is me writing? Already it says what it is.
Our content is curated by the outer limits of our cages.
I like the powerful excavation of history’s double-bind: the woman who must disguise her identity to make it visible. Bravo, LaMonica!
Reading this, I’m impressed you really knew how to emphasise the eerie continuity between Sand’s strategic gender erasure and the performative contortions women still navigate today, though now it’s often less about trousers and pseudonyms, and more about tone-policing and brand calibration. George Sand had to strip herself of “the feminine” to be heard; today, women are told to lean into it, so long as it’s palatable, polished, profitable. Same gate. Different dress code.
You rightly point to Inanna as method, not metaphor . Every descent strips a layer (crown, name, voice) until a woman is reduced to what the patriarchy finds least threatening: her silence. But Sand turned that silence into syntax. Her refusal wasn’t loud, it was precise. Like Inanna, she returned from the underworld, but left the myth shattered in her wake.
A parallel comes to mind: the Japanese concept of kintsugi, repairing broken pottery with gold, the fracture made more visible, not less. Sand’s fractured public image — woman, man, intellectual, romantic — became a vessel for something stronger than seamless acceptance: resilience rendered bright. She gilded the breaks of her voice, she didn’t mask it.
George Sand entered the conversation by altering its acoustics. The true defiance wasn’t that she wrote as a man, but that she kept writing as herself once the mask was torn off. Inclusion. And also infiltration.
She didn’t ask to be a muse or martyr. She asked to be read. And she still is.
May we all descend with purpose and return with proof!
Yes, well said. I appreciate your time in reading this. It seems to be always a return to the sum of the parts being greater than the whole, for without those experiences the expanse of what one might become, the potential energy v. the kinetic energy through movement and conflict, would not reveal itself. I think this is where the patriarchal system would step in and say, “See? This is how it is meant to make you better!” to which we answer, “Ah, but if only we could see how much we could be without all the extra counter effort involved!”
Therein lies the bitter irony, the system injures, then applauds your endurance as proof of its necessity.
It’s the classic sleight of hand, break her wings, then celebrate the strength it took to crawl. Patriarchy loves to reframe resistance as refinement as if what doesn’t kill you makes you grateful. But as you point out, the true tragedy is more the bruises of conflict, it’s all about the untapped brilliance of a life lived without having to first survive someone else’s scaffolding.
Imagine a George Sand who didn’t have to disguise herself, who could have moved directly from thought to voice without first stripping herself at seven metaphorical gates. Would she have been more? Or simply freer to become sooner?
Potential energy becomes kinetic through movement, yes… but what elegance, what speed, what sheer force we might witness if women weren’t always running with sandbags strapped to their names!!!
So no, dear patriarchy, we’re not thanking you for the character you forged. We’re mourning what you cost……..
Wow! This was wonderful. I have a new hero. It’s crazy that society, even, French society, held these views, what with Joan of Arc, Lady Liberty, French Queens…thanks for another outstanding piece of work LaMonica!