Dear Melissa Fraterrigo,
I am a chronic — albeit, attempting to recover — people pleaser.
From the ages of 18 to 21, I found myself becoming an emotional sponge for those in my immediate circle. I would wring out their anger, their frustration, and their despair into a proverbial bucket, only to throw the water over my head and soak it all up. We do what others want, all for the “Nice job, kid. Nice job” (46) — the affirmation that we are meeting others’ standards and that they are proud of us, if only for a short moment before we feel insecure and insignificant again.
I tell those who ask me about what it was it is like to be an only child that there are two experiences: you are either alone 24/7, your parents leaving you up to your own devices, and thus, you are less connected to them, or you are unhealthily attached to them to the point where boundaries are blurred and all thoughts are bared. I feel lucky to have the latter relationship with my mother and father, but this also meant that during my adolescence and early young adulthood, when my mother or father would say those three words, I would respond with “Are you sure?” for no other reason than the fact that I was deeply insecure and wanted to make sure that I was living up to their standards. I imagine my response was frustrating to them in some ways — that after twenty years of living under their roof, they would wish I had developed a stronger sense of self-love, if not self-tolerance. But I wanted to be good. To them, to my friends, and later, to the people I pursued romantically.
Part of what draws me to The Perils of Girlhood is that I see this want reflected in your writing. Your admittance to wanting to be loved and cared for in the lines “As frightened as I am, I know I need to do this so he will like me. To learn how to shoot a gun. To be more like Dad” (37) is something that I am attempting to work through, though you were under different circumstances than those I grew up with. Still, I wanted and want to be like my father. I am no longer a child and still yearn for the approval of those around me. I presume this desire to be liked is one I will grapple with as I age, but it is one that is worth writing about, as you have.
This spring-turning-to-summer, I have been thinking about how I have seen myself and the women around me absorb the misogyny from the men we interact with — whether on a daily basis or in passing. When you write “We don’t say it out loud, but we envy Anna’s chest, two giant hills she cannot disguise under sweater vests or cabled cardigans. The boys make up songs about her and snap her bra more than ours. We worry our breasts will not grow” (18), I see two key themes reflected: those being the continuation of the aforementioned wanting thread and the absorption of sexism.
While I detested my breasts as I entered puberty, and would squish them down with the tightest sports bras my mother would buy for me from the nearest Kohl’s, I empathize with you and your childhood friends in that moment. As girls, I believe we grow up being told that all attention from boys is good attention — that the teasing is not bullying, but rather, a crush in disguise. I realize now that this is utter bull; boys should not express their crushes with jabs and mean words. We become bounce backs for their emotions and are told to tolerate (at best) or value (at worst) their outbursts. When I read the snapping of the bra straps and your childhood worry that you would not develop, I see the latter in action.
In the sixth grade, a boy who had already reached six feet tall refused to call me by my nickname. Every time he would call out my birthname, I would scowl, much to his delight. The teacher wouldn’t correct him, and my mother chided me with “He just has a crush on you,” much to my dismay. In the seventh grade, after being split up into classes that reflected our academic strengths and after being told time and time again that his behavior was due to his attraction to my prepubescent self, I caught myself feeling somewhat disappointed that I wouldn’t hear him teasing me. I had accepted his teasing and even began to value it. We need to stop doing this. Our daughters shouldn’t accept this. I will no longer.
I want to thank you for your writing about romantic and sexual experiences with the absence of consent. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVC), approximately 81% of American women have experienced a form of sexual harassment or assault in their lifetime. We are unfortunate enough to be in that statistic, but we are not merely statistics. I appreciate the time you take to detail your experiences, questioning where your boundaries are crossed. I know that it is not easy to write these passages, so I thank you for doing so.
The summer of my 20th year, I dated a man I believed I could fall in love with easily. I pursued him, and he pursued me. When you write about your high school dance date, stating “I let him kiss me. Hadn’t I been the one to ask him? Hadn’t he been the one to accept my invitation?” (35), I felt the familiar shiver in my spine that I felt in his bedroom, frozen. I did not like what this man was doing to my body, but wasn’t I his girlfriend? Hadn’t I pursued a relationship with him, and hadn’t we messed around before? I realize now that it didn’t matter whether he was my boyfriend or whether I had pronounced my love for him before that moment. He didn’t have access to me in that way, because I did not want to give it to him.
I feel the lines “In the distant future, when a college boyfriend would hold me down in his apartment bedroom, I’d discover that panic again” (15) in my veins. Attempting to date again after this experience, praying that I wouldn’t find myself panicked in the arms of an English date, I found myself kissing a man with his hand around my neck. Only this time, I fled. I did not want to experience the fear and confusion any longer.
Since then, I’ve had to learn how to trust again. It has not been easy, even with a loving partner. Every step of the way, I have to check myself and reassure myself that I am not in danger. When my memory and fight-or-flight response urge me to flee, I must remind myself to take a deep breath. I am encouraged to write more about this after reading your pieces. I hope we can heal together, and that writing has helped you on your healing journey.
Thank you for The Perils of Girlhood. It is an incredibly special collection, ripe with emotion. I am honored to have read it.
Very sincerely,
Carlin Steere
