"It's all about making the man happy."

I sat in a circle amongst my 20 other classmates and fellow artists, with my pencil and sketchbook on my lap.  We were engaging in a "writing" exercise. I'd done a few of these during my undergrad degree.  You're given a time limit and you write for the sake of writing.  You don't stop... not even for a second.  This may very well mean you write over and over again: I don't know what to write.  The point is to maybe tap into your subconscious and how you feel should inevitably flows through your finger tips onto the paper (if you're lucky).

I had a sort of epiphany when doing this and scrounged up some material I think I can really explore within my artwork.

Shelley, our professor, had given us only a few seconds to write separate lists of things we loved and hated.  She then told us to take the one that most stood out to us.  We wrote about it for two minutes, then three, and then five.

Under the Things I Hate column, I scribbled down something my mother had said to me during my last trip home to Cape Breton.  We were sitting on the couch having a mother-daughter heart-to-heart when she said to me, "It's all about making the man happy."  My feminist soul was appalled by this.  My blood boiled.  Since that day about two months ago, those words have been burning inside of me.  After arriving in Oxford, I'd written out the quote on card stock and have it resting against a framed photograph of Jesse and I.  

"It's all about making the man happy" stood on line number three of the Things I Hate column.  What flowed out of me, through the writing exploration, were my fears unfolding.

Once upon a time, I'd actively preach against this kind of succumbing to the domesticated stereotype.  I, out of spite, would silently refuse to ever do my partner's laundry or cook meals for him.  I never wanted to get married or have children.  Ever.  But now... I am that woman; however, I choose to be.  Can I still claim to be a feminist while simultaneously "sleeping with the enemy"1?  My partner never tells me what to do.  I love and thoroughly enjoy doing things for him.

Growing up, I used to loathe when my parents told me to wash the dishes.  I wouldn't do them out of spite of their assumption that I should. However, when they were at work and I was home, I would love to do a thorough cleaning of the whole house to surprise them when they walked through the door.  But being told what to do infuriated me.

Does Jesse expect me to do these things now that I've been doing them over the last year?  Has he become numb to it?  Does he understand that I'm not doing them by default, because I'm "supposed to"?  Fuck.  I hope so. I choose to do his laundry and make his lunches for work, just like I've chosen  not to with past partners.  But am I only doing these things out of fear of losing him?  If I stopped, would he leave me?  So am I, by default, doing these things to make him happy?

Can I preach against the inevitability of falling victim to these words my mother said while simultaneously being an evident victim?  

Here has fallen my struggle, internal conflict, and inevitable relationship with these words my mother said.

Is it, in fact, all about making the man happy?

1 In 2010, I'd explored this thought in an essay during my Canadian Women: Critical Perspectives course. According to Andrew Dworkin, who was an American radical feminist and writer, "to engage in heterosexuality was to quite literally sleep with the enemy." Women fight for gender equality; Does it mean that those who fight gender injustice by day and sleep with men by night are "sleeping with the enemy"? It got me thinking about the thin line drawn and I further explored my thoughts and questions while engaging in the course reading, Open Boundaries.