It Is The System

by watercolorcantcolor


My mother was Gothel, and I was resentful.

Like a poison vine, continuously crawling toward my pineal gland; and in this momentum, my utopian dream was corrupted. A nurturing mother, who pours me a love that doesn’t hurt... that doesn’t constrain me, that never stops me from scrutinizing this novel macrocosm—I couldn’t have it. To venture outside was a taboo, and to leave the premises she had set was a crime worthy of punishment. Through the cracks of her cage, the greeneries were the fairies that sparkled under the sun’s grace, and the sound of rain seemed like sirens enticing me to step onto the earth; to smell the wafts of petrichor, and lay on a bed of roses as I had people accompany me. These exaggerated associations were the result of my inability to experience the world I craved so badly—the world my mother deprived me of.


My mother was Gothel, and I was hesitant.


Like the tablet where Moses carved God’s Ten Commandments, she inculcated in me that society was not as endearing and nurturing as I thought it was. She told me that I was constantly in danger, unable to trust anyone aside from my immediate family who only had women surviving men’s infidelity and lapses. A strict curfew, monitored activities, and a sister I could only be with at school—represented mutes at a funeral; a routine that is ever stagnant, hampering me from my life’s social task. I was desperate to reach out to the people my mother said were fickle, yet I always felt that her words could have substance and many times, I knew, some mistakes are irreversible. I was growing, and so her cage was becoming unable to contain me. Perhaps… I should.


My mother was Gothel, and I was confused.

Like how the stronghold of unbelief slowly proves the nonexistence of certain convictions, my mother was also a collection of paradoxes. To condemn the system that disables women is a feat to celebrate, but such critiques only resonated in a private space; shackled within her mind and the home that keeps our secrets. Every day felt like a battle to live another day, and she was almost, always alone, shouldering this crumbling home while I stood there, confronted with an emerging abhorrence against the existing constructs that bestowed upon me and generations of my family useless wings. I did not understand why my mother still clung to hope despite her relentless complaints about life, about herself, and this world. This inconsistency made me doubt the purpose of the cage she put me in as I grew up. Was it to mold my benevolence toward women? To carve the same scars that men had inflicted on our “inferior” kind? Where is such resilience coming from?

My mother was Gothel, and I am trying to understand.

Like the glory of Mount Tai who never bowed down to the strongest winds, she was among the legion of women who forged an indestructible shield against centuries of gender-based killings and oppression, marked by innumerable abuse, neglect, exploitation, defilement, and deprivation. I do not blame my mother for the childhood she gave me, even as she acted against the very ideologies she wanted me to hold. I do not blame my mother for making me prioritize myself, even when she couldn’t do the same as my primary model for social learning. I do not blame my mother for having to endure being a woman—bearing the burden of guilt for subjecting me to become less like the nurturing personification of women that she grew up believing she should always be. I understand that it was not my mother’s fault that she lacked the willpower to become the ideal self she longed to be; someone a little selfish, a little more stubborn, someone who could walk away from the home she couldn’t save. I understand that my mother grew up without a father figure, and she didn’t want me to be the same, even if it meant she had to give up her individuality and silently hope for the day she could finally rest.

My mother is Gothel, and I am thankful.

Like this gratitude that I hold the greatest thought about, my mother will always be the reason I continue to fight against the system that designed women to be nothing more than nurturing fairies—stripped of flight, confined to a garden in an arid land, blamed for the plague. In this system that dictates I exist as a tool for procreation, a machine to raise the young while repressing my jealousy against my husband’s mistresses; bearing the title of Eve who subjected mankind to doom—I will not simply sit and suffer in silence. I am also allowed to voice my thoughts; to be an imperfect organism, just like many men who mask it behind their assertion of dominance; to be exhausted; to not be nice and accommodating; to prefer cats and dogs; to walk at night without fear; and most importantly, to exercise the same rights and privileges that many generations of my kind can only secretly aspire to.