Dear sisters,


I have so much privilege as a middle-class female who is not a parent. Yet the daily sexism I live with in my home as a woman married to a male is exhausting. I chose a “good one,” and yet it is still hard. Fortunately, both my single and partnered Co-Counselors don’t get confused about me or him or our relationship while they help me face the sexism.


Building a life with someone who has been systematically trained to discount my thoughts, words, and actions, and who acts out those recordings in spite of his best efforts, is brutal. It makes me discount my own thinking. It restimulates early loneliness and boredom that are linked to internalized sexism and early defeat. Also, the sexism restimulates how no one acknowledged my mind when I was a child. I was ridiculed and dismissed as a girl but rewarded for being cute and well-behaved. (Thankfully my husband doesn’t act out needing me to be proper or pretty.) I often find myself thinking, “You have no idea who I am,” which is also a recording from my childhood. I have to discharge on early hurts and on present-day interactions so that I can keep thinking and trying new things.


I’ve had some successes. The phrase “sexism and male domination” is said often in our home. I name it when it comes from him and when we see it on television. He now does the same. Sometimes, after I point out that he has interrupted me, he’ll shout, “Sexism and male domination!” We laugh. I’ll sometimes ask, “Why do you talk to me like that when I’m your favorite person on this earth?” We both know it’s because of patterns of male domination, reinforced by society, that he hasn’t been able to shed. Having this mutual understanding is helpful, but things are still hard.


Our different responses to caretaking our parents during the pandemic have been interesting. They have everything to do with sexism. We both assume that I will take care of my parents and that his sister will take care of his. He does not want to get sick and feels no obligation to expose himself. If I get sick, he’ll take care of me, but that’s the extent to which he’s willing to sacrifice. 


What if I could take a stand like that? What if I could put my health first? But do so while being connected and loving? I have been discharging on not taking care of my parents if they fall ill [become ill], something that is not instinctual and feels terrible as a female Catholic. In session, I’ve been saying things like, “If you need to go to the hospital, dial 911.” I’ve had several sessions weeping about it. It’s also made me realize that I need to discharge more about caretaking my brother when he was terminally ill and then handling so much after he took his life. It took a big toll on my mind. Facing that is good and hard. A Co-Counselor gave me a direction the other day, which I’m still working on: “Mom and Dad, I’m going to sit this one out” [not do anything to help you this time].