The Empirics of Wifehood
Ongoing Series
"I belong to that classification of people known as wives. I am A Wife.
And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother. "
Judy Brady
"Anti-Portraits of My Womanhood," 2016.
I need a wife.
A wife who can remember all the details.
A wife who can make sacrifices for my career. A wife who loves her family more than herself.
A wife who remembers the kids' birthdays.
As a wife, you can manage the bills and the savings account.
A wife who can contain me when I feel down. A wife who smiles when she wants to scream.
A wife who tells me that everything is going to be ok.
A wife who can remember all the details.
A wife who can make sacrifices for my career. A wife who loves her family more than herself.
A wife who remembers the kids' birthdays.
As a wife, you can manage the bills and the savings account.
A wife who can contain me when I feel down. A wife who smiles when she wants to scream.
A wife who tells me that everything is going to be ok.
"It's Not Love," 2016
Photo Collaboration with Pablo Unzueta.
"What they call love, we call it unpaid labor." Sílvia Federici.
Mothers emotionally carry the family.
Mothers hide their bad days in their apron pockets to assure the family they are here to nurture when someone needs a gentle hand and the soft whisper of "tomorrow is a better day."
Mothers are the life-giving, the most precious of all gifts.
Mothers are home, emotional shelters of bottomless love and patience.
Mothers are selfless givers, the unconditional protectors, and no matter how you treat them, the nature of their love is absolute and, again, selfless and bottomless.
The emotional sexism of the stereotype of "mothers" is why I have an issue associating "Mother Earth" with planet Earth. The Earth is a feminine entity that will always shelter and provide for us. The idea of Mother and Mother Earth as an endless and unconditional source of life, love, and generosity is why both of them can be subjugated. If someone or something is unconditional, it doesn't matter how it is treated because it can be dominated. But this cannot be further from the truth. The truth is that the planet earth doesn't care about us. The planet is not our mother. Nothing natural on this planet belongs to us. The Earth survived millions of years without us, so if we disappear, the Earth will continue to rotate and most likely thrive without human destruction. Earth's sources and animals are not eternal. And the truth about "Mothers" is that not all mothers are good mothers. Some women are terrible mothers, despicable mothers. Some of them shouldn't even be allowed to have children. Some mothers are hopelessly selfish and narcissistic. On the other hand, good mothers are not perfect because no woman is; further, no human is perfect: Mothers get tired; sometimes their children annoy them; some days they cannot give hope because they don't have any; sometimes mothers are drained; sometimes mothers only want silence. Like the planet earth, mothers have limits, but emotional sexism says otherwise.
