What are ways that women are not supposed to be? What are they not supposed to do?
Mona Eltahawy interrogates social behavioral control of women and non-binary people through the framing of seven types of behavior that are understood to be in some way improper. Anger, Attention, Profanity, Ambition, Power, Violence, and Lust.
In Seven Necessary Sins Elthawy asks one of the most important questions – Who does this benefit?
The author argues not only that women and girls should engage in activities driven by these “sins” but also, and very importantly, that we should learn how to divorce these drivers from existing power structures. Non-binary people should not aim to gain and exercise patriarchal power. They should define and exercise power outside of traditional patriarchal models.
“What is ambition liberated from oppression?” This resonated so strongly with me. Permission to strive but not for career or money or status. Permission to not spend the best of myself for a job, or to measure myself against a corporate ladder populated by men. Permission to love the goals that I make that make me feel more and more myself and less and less like my life belongs to other people.
When women who exercise violence are punished more harshly than men are, we see the proscription on women’s use of violence in action. In the US, women who kill their intimate partners receive significantly more prison time than men who do the same despite the fact that women are far more likely to kill in self defense. The anger that wells up is righteous and legitimate and one does not need to push it down or forgive but to act with that anger (that we aren’t supposed to have) as a wellspring of fire and energy.
I recommend this book for people of all genders. It is important for all of us to see the hegemonic control of “acceptable behavior” for what it is – a tool to keep all people separated from each other so they don’t question who these controls actually benefit. When we can identify that we are being hemmed in, and for who’s benefit, then we can work within ourselves and in society to free everyone from those shackles.
-fh