The people, the fear, and the websites, that shut us up
The other night, without trying, I
managed to say something so forbidden, so taboo, so radioactive, that Facebook
felt it necessary to, without so much as a warning, instantaneously and
permanently erase a discussion thread of dozens of posts. I didn't swear or
threaten or even type in all caps. Women from all over the world were saying
thought-provoking things about Jane Austen novels, and the new Netflix series, Bridgerton.
I was in the middle of responding to a complete stranger telling me that my
post had made her day. Facebook waved its magic censorship wand and the entire
thread went POOF.
Does this matter? Yes, because people getting together and having frank and civil conversations about culture is one of the activities that keeps civilization going. And it matters because it was women making sure that other women didn't say anything that they didn't want "uppity" women to say. Harrison Butker didn't shut down this exchange. Women did.
Facebook's erasure matters because it
was so trivial. I'm nobody. Nobody famous was participating. I tentatively expressed
a minor opinion about a TV show. The words appearing on computer screens had an
audience of hundreds, not millions. They would be read, and then forgotten, in
a few days.
Even in private gatherings, behind
virtual closed doors, we are not free to speak, to hear, to express, to have an
opinion that a petty shrew who goes after anyone who has anything she doesn't
have, including an idea, might object to. We can't even offend a Facebook
algorithm.
It's not just the rich and famous who
need to police their speech. It's the conversations at the laundromat, or the
bus stop, or the Facebook discussion group, that rouse fury so intense that
these conversations must shrink.
The other night was not the first time I've
been punished for speaking. I was probably born to be a spinster. Football,
pantyhose, fingernail polish, beer, cigarettes, shoplifting, fast cars, teen
shotgun marriages: just a few of the lures whose seductiveness to my friends
merely perplexed me. I was always off in the woods, in the library, or dreaming
of far-off places. I wanted to read, to write, to think, and to speak. And boy
oh boy were those activities not okay for girls in my hometown.
In high school, I worked as a nurse's
aide full time and saved every penny. I told my breathtakingly handsome Italian
Stallion dance partner, "This summer I'm going to attend classes at the
Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland!" I would have loved to have
taken him with me.
He looked at me as if I were crazy,
"Why would you want to miss summer down the Jersey shore?"
I still feel that sinking feeling I felt
during that dance. He was so tall, so muscular, and so patient of my inability
to differentiate between right and left feet. We were pressed up against each
other so close that I could practically teach an anatomy lesson from every
bicep, triceps, and pectoral I was, appreciatively, feeling. But we were inhabiting
different planets.
It took me a long time to overcome the
socioeconomic and cultural barriers to getting an advanced degree, but when I
finally went to grad school, I experienced a life-changing revelation. I was in
Stephen's Lounge, a quiet place to study, on the campus of U.C. Berkeley. I
felt something I had never felt before. A contentment, a feeling of rightness,
a peace, and a joy. I was finally somewhere, after years of being the weird
girl, where reading, writing, and expressing opinions were all okay, accepted,
expected, and celebrated.
I quickly learned, though, that even on
campuses, dedicated to scholarship and free inquiry, there were things one is
not supposed to say. I remember that seminar where a fellow grad student with lax
hygiene informed me, to general approval, that Westerners cannot judge
clitoridectomy, because it is a ritual, just like Catholic confirmation, and
any criticism of it was "Racist."
This girl was rich, and a descendant of
many generations in America. Her personal and domestic filth were an
affectation that, she seemed to think, made her one with the wretched of the
earth. Cleanliness is godliness to Polish immigrants, and to many truly poor
people. The really poor can't show off with a car or a college degree; personal
hygiene is a way to communicate self-worth. How many of us have mothers who
said, "You could perform surgery on my kitchen floor it is so clean!"
Or "Water is free and soap is cheap!"
But that rich, dirty girl had the
approval of the entire seminar, including the professor. I got hostile stares
and gossip. "She's not like us; she doesn't have the right stuff; she's
not fit to be here." The word "working class" was applied to me,
and not in a good way. In spite of those lovely moments in Stephen's Lounge, I
was still the weird girl, and I was still being told to stop thinking, stop
writing, and just shut up and go with the flow.
When I started posting on the internet,
I thought, "This will change everything. The truth will find a new voice
that the police, the bankers, and the press cannot silence." I was part of
an active and popular online community inhabited by political leftists and
cultural hippies. I learned some harsh truths there about the internet's
limited power to convey truth.
After 9-11, no one wanted to hear that
Islam had anything to do with it. You could say it; you could back it up with
facts. The facts fell on deaf ears. "So you're saying that all Muslims are
terrorists. I know lots of nice Muslims." Of course no one said that all
Muslims are terrorists. But just like that graduate seminar, where criticism of
gender apartheid was silenced with the conversation-stopping accusation, "racism,"
any criticism of jihad was similarly deflected with straw men.
And then there was the left-wing hippie
antisemitism. It astounded me. I didn't understand it then and I don't
understand it now. I didn't understand the prominent Jewish community members,
even the community leaders, who remained mum about the community-wide problem
of antisemitism. There was the Christophobia. A union organizer from Oregon
said that if he could, he would round up all Christians in America and kill
them all. I was the only person to object to that post.
There was a misogyny so twisted you
needed a Rosetta stone to decode it. The community's women were all bravely
liberated. Their liberation consisted mostly in public announcements of their
promiscuity and a cheapening of the public self, as in "Let me tell you in
detail about my latest STD journey."
All these liberated women had attitudes
that were as restrictive as a 1950s corset. They arrived at those attitudes
through the most "progressive" of routes. "Men and women are
equal" become "Men and women are the same." One could not argue
that women faced challenges that men do not, because to do so was to buy into
"outdated" "biological determinism." Men didn't need to exercise
special concern for women; such a demand relied on outdated ideas of
"chivalry." "Chivalry" was not important because men and women
were equally strong, equally able to fight physical fights, equally eager for
one-night stands. Men were victims of abusive women to the same degree that
women were victims of abusive men.
The women supported all of this, partly
because they felt it politically necessary to believe it, partly because it was
flattering to tell themselves that they were not vulnerable, and partly because
the men ate it up and praised them for everything they said that let men off
the hook. The men in the group basked in being victims; the women played earth
mother to needy men.
An obese, unkempt girl – she posted
photos of herself – mourned that the only man who would date her was homeless
and he wanted to live in her apartment. I tried to be helpful. Please don't
laugh; no doubt you can imagine how this all turned out. I mentioned that
"men learn to love the person they are attracted to; women learn to become
attracted to the person they love." I subtly suggested, oh, maybe a diet.
Maybe some exercise. Maybe some new clothes. I was denounced as a troublemaking
freak and I left.
So, yeah, I'm a spinster, and truth to
tell, I often feel more alone with others than when I am by myself. When
talking to myself, I don't have to ask myself, "Who will be upset if I
express this thought?"
The other night I was watching the
Netflix series Bridgerton. Bridgerton is based on a series of novels
published by Julia Quinn between 2000 and 2006. The Netflix series began in
2020. It's produced by Shonda Rhimes, a 54-year-old Chicago native. Rhimes'
mother was a college professor; her father was an administer. Rhimes is a very
successful TV producer and writer. Rhimes is black and she is an activist.
The Bridgerton novels are set in
England between 1813 and 1827. The main characters are British nobility. The
plots revolve around balls, carriage rides, and romance. In Rhimes' TV series,
Regency-Era England is populated by white, black, and Asian nobility.
In some versions of colorblind casting,
a black actor performs a character or historical personage meant to be white.
For example, in 2021, British TV released a series depicting the life of Anne
Boleyn, one of the wives of Henry VIII. In this series, Boleyn was played by
Jodie Turner-Smith, a black actress. Viewers are to forget that Turner-Smith is
black, and see, in her performance, a woman who was actually white. In Rhimes' Bridgerton,
the black and Asian actors are meant to be perceived as black and Asian.
This Bridgerton is an AU – that is, an alternative universe. In the
Netflix Bridgerton's alternative universe, black and Asian people were
British nobility.
Bridgerton's multiracial cast of Regency nobility is
one feature hailed as "updating" or "modernizing" Jane
Austen. Jane Austen (1775 – 1817) was an English novelist. Her six best-known
novels take place among English gentry. These novels focus on girls' attempts
to achieve a successful marriage. Austen's works have many fans, many
imitators, and many cinematic adaptations, two hundred years after their
publication.
The other feature meant to be an update
and an improvement on Austen is Bridgerton's nudity and simulated sex
scenes. There are no kisses in Austen's novels (this is debated),
and beloved film adaptations, like the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, might
include only one kiss, or none. Audiences requiring nudity and sex in their
entertainment insist that Austen's lack of sex scenes is a flaw, a flaw that
the superior modern era has repaired with ample dollops of boob-and-butt
glimpsing, spit-swapping, and simulated humping.
Like a lot of women who don't like
romance novels, I am fascinated by them. I read one Bridgerton novel. It
was one of the two worst novels I've ever read. (The other was by Harold
Robbins.) I watch Netflix's Bridgerton because I'm interested in pop
culture by and for women. I also like looking at pretty things – sets, clothes,
scenery. But I ask myself, "Why do women like this so much? Why is this
not working for me? Am I really gay, or a man, but I don't realize it?"
The other night, I was watching season
three, episode two, entitled "How Bright the Moon." The male romantic
lead, Colin, is depicted, bare-chested, in bed, between two younger women, both
of whom expose their breasts. A sheet covers all three performers' groins. Colin
turns his erotic attention from one girl to another. He is clearly in a state
of arousal. He glances at a clock and realizes that he is late for something –
perhaps another carriage ride. He jumps up. The girls gaze at him longingly.
They are depicted as very much enjoying being his service providers. The girls
are clean, well-fed, and healthy looking. The bed, sheets, and furnishings are luxurious,
right out of a Victoria's Secret ad. These actresses are not depicting
recurring characters and will probably not be seen again.
Shonda Rhimes' production company is
named Shondaland, which sounds almost like what "shame country" might
sound like in Yiddish. Shondaland's calculations are obvious in the
above-described scene. In previous Bridgerton episodes, Colin was the
pipsqueak kid brother to the episode's romantic leads, his older siblings. To
transform a background character into the new episode's lead, a "Bridgerton
glow-up," as the New York Times calls it, is necessary. In
our modern, sex-positive era, a pipsqueak younger brother character is
transformed into a romantic lead, not by depicting him accomplishing something
honorable, or sacrificing himself for a noble goal, or exhibiting a feat of
strength. No, he takes off his clothes and cavorts with hookers.
"A vast, hostile, soulless, wicked
all-devouring but also fatally attractive place that makes and breaks, that
tempts, inflames, satisfies, yet corrupts and ultimately kills." That's historian
Dan Cruikshank's encapsulation of Georgian London, where one in five women were
prostitutes. Pregnancy might end in infanticide. Makeup was lead-based; rouge
was tin-based; mercury treated VD. Prostitutes literally poisoned themselves to
remain attractive, or merely to avoid death from VD. Desperate country girls
were placed on an auction block and then stripped, as rich Johns bid for the
right to take the girl's virginity. Streetwalkers got "three penny"
for "upright" penetration in an alley. "Child prostitutes,"
reports the Daily
Mail, "were not uncommon. A magistrate on a 'search night' in the
1750s discovered to his horror that, of the 40 prostitutes arrested, most of
them were under the age of 18 and some were as young as 12, and this at a time
when 14 or 15 was generally accepted to be the age of puberty."
Did the prostitutes enjoy their work, as
depicted in Bridgerton? "She was cold as ice, seemingly totally
devoid of feeling. I rose convinced that she had no passion for the male
sex," wrote memoirist William Hickey of his encounter with famed
prostitute Emily Warren. Warren was forced into prostitution at age twelve,
after she was discovered by a madame as she, Warren, was leading her blind
beggar father around London.
Josephine Butler (1828 – 1906) is one of
my heroines. I wish she were better known. She was a devout Christian and she
dedicated her life to victims of the sex trade, including child prostitutes. I
wish Netflix would produce a series about her.
What fueled this robust trade in human
flesh? Male lust of course, but, more significantly, the very same force that
made Pemberly possible. Darcy is the male lead of Austen's most famous novel, Pride
and Prejudice. Pemberly is his impossibly grand mansion. When Elizabeth,
the female lead, first sees Darcy's home, she is awestruck. In fact, it is in
viewing his mansion, not in meeting him, that causes Elizabeth to fall in love
with Darcy. When they first meet, Elizabeth hates Darcy. Elizabeth's sister
demands to know when Elizabeth agreed to marry a man she had previously hated.
Elizabeth replies, "I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful
grounds at Pemberley."
Elizabeth seeing her future fiancé's
mansion for the first time is so significant that it's a favorite scene in
various adaptations; see here
and here. Elizabeth
first seeing Pemberly is as close as Pride and Prejudice comes to a
first kiss. What made Darcy so rich that a mere glance at his home could cause
a woman who hated him to fall in love with him? The same forces that made
children so poor that they could be roped into sex slavery.
In England, "Never was the chasm
between rich and poor more stark than in the Regency era … the wealthiest gorged themselves on the
fruits of Britain’s industrial might, while the working classes endured lives that
were often nasty, brutish and short" according to BBC
History Magazine. "In the 1830s, middle-class Londoners could expect
to live to 44 but working-class ones only 22, just 50 per cent as long.
Working-class people in towns like Liverpool, Preston and Manchester were lucky
if they reached 19, at a time when average life expectancy from birth in the UK
was more than 40." In London in 1816, John Quincy Adams wrote, "The
extremes of opulence and of want are more remarkable, and more constantly
obvious, in this country than in any other I ever saw."
I bore anyone who knows me by mentioning
too many times that my parents were literally peasants. My mother was born in a
river while her mother took a break from working in hot summer fields. She grew
up in a house that my grandfather built by hand. In this country, my people
were coal miners. My father mined coal as a child. He could have been the
subject of a Lewis Hine muckraking
photograph.
I used to find it very difficult to
appreciate Jane Austen's novels and their cinematic adaptations. I mentioned my
resistance to Austen in the above-mentioned online discussion site. Charlie
Ryan was a gay man in L.A. We never met, but we loved "talking" to
each other at the site. We were both big film fans.
Charlie respected me enough to yell at
me. "How can you not value Jane Austen? She's a genius. You have to read
her again. You have to watch the 1995 Pride and Prejudice again. Keep
watching it till you get it," Charlie nagged. "Yes," Charlie
acknowledged, "its rewards are subtle. There are no car crashes or
explosions." When a film fan says, "There are no car crashes or
explosions," he is saying, in code, "Don't be too stupid to
appreciate this subtle work of art." "Watch the eye contact,"
Charlie went on. "Watch the societal interplay."
And, Charlie insisted, "Jane Austen
cares as much about class as you do. She talks as much about class as you do,
but in a different language. Keep reading, keep watching, till you learn
that!"
I did what Charlie told me to do. And
I'm glad I got to tell him that he was right, before he died, prematurely, from
his smoking habit. Austen is debated by experts, and I am not one. I can't say
if she was left-wing or right-wing. I can say that, while she produced
miniatures of the only life she was qualified to write about – and that was not
the life of an impoverished child prostitute – she was aware of, and she felt
for, the overwhelming wound of her Regency world. That wound was the gulf
between classes.
In Persuasion, Lady Russell
nearly ruins her goddaughter Anne's life by persuading her not to marry the
love of her life, because he is a sailor who would have to work to make his way
in the world. Lady Russell wants Anne to marry a member of the landed gentry.
But that titled man is a creep, and it would be a disaster for Anne to marry
Lady Russell's choice. Anne befriends another "unsuitable" person,
Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith is a chronically ill and impoverished widow. Anne's
father looks down on this friendship. He would prefer that Anne spend time with
Lady Dalrymple, a Viscountess, who, in spite of her high station, lacks charm.
Similarly, Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride
and Prejudice is another rich and titled woman who is not an attractive
character. In spite of her arrogance and rudeness, Mr. Collins, a
"conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly" social-climbing cleric,
practically crawls in front of Lady Catherine. His lifestyle depends on her
approval. Her wealth and his insecurity unman him. Also in Pride and
Prejudice, Lydia Bennet, a fifteen-year-old, allows herself to be seduced
by Wickham, a caddish soldier. Neither the book nor films spell out in detail
the fate that Lydia skates all too close to. But intelligent readers know that
fate. Lydia could have ended up on London's streets, or its auction blocks.
One of Austen's most poignant allusions
to class is also very subtle. In Emma, Miss Bates is a poor spinster who
lives with her widowed mother. She is a pleasant person but she can't stop
talking, and she seems unaware of how her chatter affects others. Her survival
is vulnerable; she depends on her neighbors' charity for foodstuffs like pork
and apples. Emma, the title character, a pretty, young, rich girl, is unkind to
Miss Bates.
This scene is one of the most vivid in
Austen, to me. Every character feels every bit like someone I might know in
2024. Every character expresses an aspect of myself. Emma demeans Miss Bates in
a way that Emma is convinced is very clever and certainly not discernable to
Miss Bates. Emma is confident that Miss Bates, because she is old, poor,
unmarried, and chatters a great deal, is also intellectually dense and
emotionally wooden. That is, Emma is sure that Miss Bates is beneath her, not
just in social standing, but also in human worth. Emma is also certain that
others will assess as clever her mockery of a poor spinster. Emma just knows
that she has displayed her own superiority by elevating herself above the Miss
Bateses of this world.
But Austen won't allow Emma to cling to
any of her snobby, snotty, callous assumptions. Mr. Knightley, one of the most
attractive characters in the book, reprimands Emma in a way that might very
well be Austen's reprimand for Regency society. Knightley – the adverb form of
"Knight in shining armor" – reminds Emma that Miss Bates "is
poor; she has sunk from the comforts she was born to; and, if she live to old
age, must probably sink more. Her situation should secure your compassion … How
could you be so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your
wit to a woman of her character, age, and situation? … to have you now, in thoughtless spirits, and
the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her … This is not pleasant."
No, Austen saying, "This is not
pleasant" to a pretty, rich girl who was just mean to a poor spinster is
not exactly Jesus saying, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into heaven," and it's not
"Workers of the world, unite!" But it moves me and I can't help but
think that it moved audiences of its time.
I thought of all this while watching Bridgerton's
prostitution scene the other night. I quickly typed up my thoughts. I was
afraid to post in a Facebook group dedicated to Jane Austen. I am no Austen
expert. But, again, I have that urge to speak, and so I spoke.
I wanted to say that the prostitution
scene in Netflix's Bridgerton struck me as the betrayal by a woman –
Shonda Rhimes – of the women for whom she claims she is making entertainment. The
female lead of these episodes is played by Nicola Coughlan, a plus-size,
37-year-old actress. Some are celebrating that Netflix made a plump, mature
actress a romantic lead. That's all part of the modern improvements to Regency
romance.
Okay, I wanted to say. It's great that
fat girls are having their chance. But the prostitutes. Are we not supposed to
think about them? Are we supposed just to focus on the chest hair on shirtless actor
Luke Newton, whose character Colin has been elevated from younger brother brat
to hot lead? And regard the two prostitutes servicing him as mere decoration?
Are we supposed to forget about the class issues in Regency England?
And I struggled to communicate more. I
tried to say, "Ya know, Netflix is just so patting-itself-on-the-back righteous
that it's got this whole colorblind casting gimmick going. That's oh-so
liberatory. But is it really? The BBC says that 'From 1761 to 1807, traders
based in British ports hauled 1,428,000 captive African people across the
Atlantic and pocketed £60 million – perhaps £8 billion in today's money – from
the sale of enslaved people.'"
I wanted to say more. According to Royal
Society of Arts Fellow Jason
Hickel, "new research by the renowned economist Utsa Patnaik, just
published by Columbia University Press" shows that "Britain drained a
total of nearly $45 trillion from India during the period 1765 to 1938."
And yet Netflix's Bridgerton depicts
blacks and Asians in silks and satins, diamonds and pearls, enjoying leisurely
carriage rides and hot sex with English viscounts and viscountesses. Is that
really "inclusion" Or is it "erasure"? Are people just
bodies, just skin colors?
No! I wanted to say. All those people
who saw my mother as merely "white," as enjoying "white
privilege," had no idea of the village where she grew up, the unique, rich,
Slovak culture. They had no idea of why she had to quit school in America,
though she was a brilliant student, and go to work as a young teen and never
stop working, ever, in her life. These people didn't know who Janosik was, or
why he was hung by a meat hook, or anything about Nazi occupation or Red Army
rapes or Prague Spring. To reduce my mother to "white" was to erase
her. Just so, to put a black actor in a silk suit is to erase what really
happened to black people in Regency England.
All these folks, so proud of themselves,
because they just luv colorblind casting. Shouldn't any real rejection of
racism require more of us than merely liking a Netflix miniseries? Should such
pride not require us to at least watch a miniseries like Roots?
And isn't Rhimes, the child of
university professionals, doing what we've all been required to do, at the risk
of sounding racist if we don't go along? That is, focus exclusively on race,
and ignore class, including the poor of Regency England, including the poor of
West Virginia?
And, I tried to say, Austen addressed
class, although, of course, she did so in ladylike ways that wouldn't rattle
too many cages too harshly. Bridgerton doesn't just abandon the question
of class. It betrays the victims of class, like the servants, who are given no
agency, like the prostitutes, reduced to mere props for the male lead. Cyril
Dickman worked at Buckingham Palace for fifty years. When Anthony Hopkins
played a butler in Remains of the Day, Dickman told Hopkins,
"There's nothing to being a butler, really; when you're in the room, it
should be even more empty." In Bridgerton, the class issue is as
invisible as Cyril Dickman's butler.
I was afraid to post all this,
especially since I'm no expert. I knew there were reasonable objections to my
positions. I wanted to hear the objections, see what I was missing, and engage
with others. So, I pressed, "post."
I was astounded and delighted. Within
minutes dozens of posts appeared. Women from all over offered positive
feedback. I was so touched. People offered interesting alternative points of
view. Experts shared their knowledge, and educated me.
It was so great that I could handle the
small percentage of abuse. This abuse came, not from men telling me to go get
married and have kids and stop thinking and writing. No. It came from women.
One woman, a gorgeous young blonde, with two daughters who look like the child
models Kate and Ashley Olsen, told me to get off my "high horse." But
posts like that, from the kind of women who go around telling other women to
shut up, were only about one percent of the posts.
The rougher posts took a different tack.
A woman who uses an angry face with the caption "Vaccines saves
lives" as a profile picture, and who, ironically, posted criticism of
Harrison Butker, said, "If you have a problem with the diversity in Bridgerton
then you are racist."
In response, I was ready to say,
"You missed my point. I don't have a problem with the 'diversity' in Bridgerton
because there is no 'diversity.' Every character is a member of the English
nobility."
As I was typing up a reply, the entire
thread disappeared.
I sent private messages to a couple of
the group admins. The next day, I received a reply. The admin told me she was a
volunteer, with limited time. She said that the thread was flagged, not by
admins, but by Facebook itself. Even though Facebook kept sending her warnings,
she said, she repeatedly approved the thread. She mentioned that it wasn't my
initial post that Facebook was flagging, but rather the minority of posts by
women "accusing" me of "racism" and also engaging in
"name calling" and "rudeness." The key term the disrupters
used was "racism." That word doomed the thread to oblivion.
Hey. Just call me Miss Bates. My whole
life, I've felt this urge to talk. My whole life, people have told me to shut
up. Sometimes the message has come from men, and it's a gendered thing. That
hurts, but the get-off-your-high-horse message hurts even worse when it comes
from a woman.
I think of two friends from my hometown.
One was a guy, and one night we were in the kitchen of my childhood home. I shared
my writing with him. He said it was "embarrassing." We lost touch. We
reconnected via Facebook. He's now a best friend. Time and life changed him. He
now supports my writing.
R. was a girl I absolutely adored. I
remember one twilight in the high weeds in her backyard, catching fireflies. I
remember dinner at her long family table, with all seven of her siblings. I
remember her tender support when my brother was killed. Families like hers are
the backbone of this world. I thought that my friendship meant as much to R. as
hers meant to me.
One day on Bergen Ave, our childhood
street, R. said to me, "You use big words. We've talked about this, and if
you don't stop, we're going to beat you up." Our friendship was never the
same. R. and I reconnected via Facebook, around the same time my sister, whom R.
knew, died of a brain tumor. I posted my grief. In her very first post on my
page, after decades of silence between us, R. made fun of me. "You were
always so melodramatic."
Don't get me wrong. I still love R. I
will never forget, and I can never repay, her support after my brother's death.
It's not thoughts or feelings that bug R. It's verbalizing them. Talking about
things was just a weird thing to do for people from our town.
I've been able to make peace with some
men who have told me I talk too much. The women who tell other women to shut
up? I have not found peace between our tribes.
Danusha
Goska is the author of God through Binoculars:
A Hitchhiker at a Monastery
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