The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements.
I’ve always been told that my body is inherently shameful. Whether I cover it up or expose it, it’s always the first and last judgement people will make of me, and if something were to happen to my body, if anyone were to mistreat it or brutalize me in some way, the thing people would ask each other is "...and what would you do if she were your daughter, or sister, or girlfriend, or mother, or wife?" As if my humanity weren't enough to make an act against me disgraceful. As if my value will always be measured by my relationship to a man.
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty!
And if I ever want to be cruel, or strong, or brutal, or powerful, or violent, it must be in a way that’s specifically female, or in other words, specifically superficial. My anger and violence is not the anger and violence of historical revolutions; it's the violence of a cat-fight. I need to be a sexy femme fatale or an older woman bitter about my fading beauty, or a spurned lover… otherwise I’m testing nature.
...make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief!
But we were taught everything we know… there’s no such thing as human nature. And if there is, it’s some fantastic bit of arrogance to claim that you know what it is, and it happens to be at my deficit. Then you can wink at me and tell me to, nudge-nudge, smile or make you a sandwich because since I know that you know that I know it's insulting, that somehow makes it okay. And it's okay that my history isn't the history of the violent, bloody, glorious revolutions that changed the world, no matter how many women gave their lives or their homes or their dignity for that same freedom. Our history, women’s history, is a secondary subset of Real History, an annotation. And when I'm rightfully angry about that, it's okay to dismiss me as militant or unattractive or bitter. And it's okay, because I know it's hard to realize your place in life might not be what you thought it was, that everything you've ever known might be skewed by some ugly truth, that it's easier to live your life without thinking of these problems and problems exactly like it. And it's okay because while today is built on yesterday, the builders of tomorrow haven’t been decided yet, and they're not going to be the sort of people who ignore problems because they're hard to think about.
Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'
So, yes I do know my place. And it's in the current revolution.
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'
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