I love your writing and always enjoy your insights. But this piece challenged me and brought to my mind many questions.
I love the I Do Not Care Club. It brings me feelings of liberation and a permisssion to exhale.
The best example I can thibk of: I have been told to hate and internalized hatred of my body for its weight and appearance since I was 8-years-old. I am utterly exhausted at 44 with hating myself, and after a decade of writing about and interviewing people with serious disabilities and their caregivers have grown to love my body for what it can do. I work out, I hydrate, I eat pretty well. But I do not care anymore if society thinks it knows about my health (my blood work has been fine for a decade; I have no metabolic diseases, and despite my 135 excess lbs my joints are fine as of yet because Ibwork out) and the subsequent judgements it will lob at me. So I wear a dress that feels good, in a color that brings me joy, even if the cut is not flattering to my shape. Because I do not care anymore about appearing smaller at all costs.
I see the We Do Not Care Club as a joyous celebration of the ways in which women support each other, how they find beauty in ach other in ways men sometimes seem unable to. It is women giving each permission to release people pleasing througg laughter. I have never sensed an undercurrent of anger when engaging with women on these platforms or pages (that doesn't mean it isn't there, of course).
I keep a clean home, try to stave off perpetual fiscal precarity, and do All the Things. And yes, sometimes tracking the calories on that last thing I ate, shaving my chin stubble, or some other small things become simply too heavy to carry. I do not care to do them in that moment, and admit the permission granted by things like the WDNC Club offers relief from guilt I feel I was taught to carry for not constantly performing the standards of peak physical and psycho-emotional state we are all, apparently, supposed to be in now.
It doesn't mean I don't care about my body, my home, or take any responsibility for my life whatsoever. And it doesn't come from anger. I think that's why the "items" in the comment section of the WDNC Club are individual and small, like not apologizing for making the car behind you in the drive through lane wait because you want to make aure your entire order is there. Or re-starting the dryer five timea because you didn't put away the clothes. A woman could rejoice in that tiny act of rebellion and still have put on makeup that day or folded their family's laundry because those are things they do care about; it is the work _are_ choosing to do. But this one small people pleasing act women list in the WDNC Club is something they have chosen to release, to set down.
Anyway, I appreciate your perspective. I found it challenging and jarring and it gave me something to sit with.
I so so appreciate the tone of your thoughtful comment. REAL DISCOURSE - yay. I think from my perspective anytime we celebrate ourselves through comparison there is a trap for us. I completely see where the relief is and your position and yet I still think that we can love ourselves without casting any shade at others who might meet standards we don't choose to. To say not wearing makeup is a rebellion for example means that women who choose it are conforming. I think it's funny and worth examination from the lens of what does it do to grouping women into "who cares" about traditional things and "who has freed themselves" and who gets to pick what falls on each side. And is that a good use of our attention... etc. etc. All worth wrestling with as we strive to build something actually cohesive and sustainable for the women coming behind us.
Interesting. I don't see it as pitting women or classifying them into groups against each other at all! I think that's where the disconnect for me from your piece comes in for me, which is pretty interesting. If I do not care about wearing makeup, it is me simply choosing to not adhere to external acculturation and standards in that way. It jas nothing whatsoever to do with another woman who does wear make up; I think I assume there may be other things she no longer cares about that I do, like keeping my home clean or making dinner. Perhaps naively, or through projection, I am happy for us both that our loads of care are lighter in the ways we chose, a tiny slice of sovereignty. Again, perhaps just me reading through a lens distorted by optimism, but I see it as joyous, not exclusionary.
But you are likely correct in that many other women probably do cast asperations on women who do still care. Fair enough. There is a rallying cry or call to arms undercurrent which can easily become dark; fair enough.
All this said, I _do_ find your observations about women being told to be anger and not metabolize that anger to be abaolutely true and a much needed insight.
Thanks! I totally respect that. I personally find that when I embody something fully it doesn’t even occur to me who is or isn’t doing it. The need to declare it disappears. That freedom is what I am aiming at giving at peak at. Honestly a lot of habits that were always hard for me but now come easily came not through protest or hard work but full energetic surrender to myself as unique from all archetypes. Again though so appreciate the effort to disagree respectfully- it’s a lost art isn’t it!
I love your writing and always enjoy your insights. But this piece challenged me and brought to my mind many questions.
I love the I Do Not Care Club. It brings me feelings of liberation and a permisssion to exhale.
The best example I can thibk of: I have been told to hate and internalized hatred of my body for its weight and appearance since I was 8-years-old. I am utterly exhausted at 44 with hating myself, and after a decade of writing about and interviewing people with serious disabilities and their caregivers have grown to love my body for what it can do. I work out, I hydrate, I eat pretty well. But I do not care anymore if society thinks it knows about my health (my blood work has been fine for a decade; I have no metabolic diseases, and despite my 135 excess lbs my joints are fine as of yet because Ibwork out) and the subsequent judgements it will lob at me. So I wear a dress that feels good, in a color that brings me joy, even if the cut is not flattering to my shape. Because I do not care anymore about appearing smaller at all costs.
I see the We Do Not Care Club as a joyous celebration of the ways in which women support each other, how they find beauty in ach other in ways men sometimes seem unable to. It is women giving each permission to release people pleasing througg laughter. I have never sensed an undercurrent of anger when engaging with women on these platforms or pages (that doesn't mean it isn't there, of course).
I keep a clean home, try to stave off perpetual fiscal precarity, and do All the Things. And yes, sometimes tracking the calories on that last thing I ate, shaving my chin stubble, or some other small things become simply too heavy to carry. I do not care to do them in that moment, and admit the permission granted by things like the WDNC Club offers relief from guilt I feel I was taught to carry for not constantly performing the standards of peak physical and psycho-emotional state we are all, apparently, supposed to be in now.
It doesn't mean I don't care about my body, my home, or take any responsibility for my life whatsoever. And it doesn't come from anger. I think that's why the "items" in the comment section of the WDNC Club are individual and small, like not apologizing for making the car behind you in the drive through lane wait because you want to make aure your entire order is there. Or re-starting the dryer five timea because you didn't put away the clothes. A woman could rejoice in that tiny act of rebellion and still have put on makeup that day or folded their family's laundry because those are things they do care about; it is the work _are_ choosing to do. But this one small people pleasing act women list in the WDNC Club is something they have chosen to release, to set down.
Anyway, I appreciate your perspective. I found it challenging and jarring and it gave me something to sit with.
I so so appreciate the tone of your thoughtful comment. REAL DISCOURSE - yay. I think from my perspective anytime we celebrate ourselves through comparison there is a trap for us. I completely see where the relief is and your position and yet I still think that we can love ourselves without casting any shade at others who might meet standards we don't choose to. To say not wearing makeup is a rebellion for example means that women who choose it are conforming. I think it's funny and worth examination from the lens of what does it do to grouping women into "who cares" about traditional things and "who has freed themselves" and who gets to pick what falls on each side. And is that a good use of our attention... etc. etc. All worth wrestling with as we strive to build something actually cohesive and sustainable for the women coming behind us.
Interesting. I don't see it as pitting women or classifying them into groups against each other at all! I think that's where the disconnect for me from your piece comes in for me, which is pretty interesting. If I do not care about wearing makeup, it is me simply choosing to not adhere to external acculturation and standards in that way. It jas nothing whatsoever to do with another woman who does wear make up; I think I assume there may be other things she no longer cares about that I do, like keeping my home clean or making dinner. Perhaps naively, or through projection, I am happy for us both that our loads of care are lighter in the ways we chose, a tiny slice of sovereignty. Again, perhaps just me reading through a lens distorted by optimism, but I see it as joyous, not exclusionary.
But you are likely correct in that many other women probably do cast asperations on women who do still care. Fair enough. There is a rallying cry or call to arms undercurrent which can easily become dark; fair enough.
All this said, I _do_ find your observations about women being told to be anger and not metabolize that anger to be abaolutely true and a much needed insight.
Thanks! I totally respect that. I personally find that when I embody something fully it doesn’t even occur to me who is or isn’t doing it. The need to declare it disappears. That freedom is what I am aiming at giving at peak at. Honestly a lot of habits that were always hard for me but now come easily came not through protest or hard work but full energetic surrender to myself as unique from all archetypes. Again though so appreciate the effort to disagree respectfully- it’s a lost art isn’t it!