Who Does She Think She Is?

It’s a film about women struggling to live as wives/mothers AND artists. It is exactly what I am trying to figure out, and I don’t even have kids yet.

Art & Craft, Film, Life | September 2nd, 2009

One Response to “Who Does She Think She Is?”

  • Mama Dalton at 5:41 pm on September 7th

    This struggle is not new, but I am glad it is getting a wider and perhaps more accessible voice. Many decades ago, and years before her time, in her tiny but beautifully rendered book, Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh poignantly captured what millions of women have felt and never expressed, even to themselves….

    “The desire to be accepted whole, the desire to be seen as an individual, not as a collection of functions, the desire to give oneself completely and purposefully pursues us always, and has its part in pushing us into more and more distractions, illusory love affairs, or the haven of hospitals and doctors’ offices….
    Woman’s life today is tending more and more toward the state of what William James describes so well in the German word, “Zerrissenheit—torn-to-pieces-hood.” She cannot live perpetually in “Zerrissenheit.” She will be shattered into a thousand pieces. On the contrary, she must consciously encourage those pursuits which oppose the centrifugal forces of today. Quiet time alone, contemplation, prayer, music, a centering line of thought or reading, or study or work. It can be physical or intellectual or artistic, any creative life proceeding from oneself. It need not be an enormous project or a great work. But it should be something of one’s own.”

    The point is, I think, a woman should not have to choose between those things that pull her apart. She should be able to express her dreams, her creativity, her art in whatever form it needs and finds itself best expressed, and feel confident in so doing, and get help along the way if needed to make that pursuit possible…from spiritual guidance and affirmation of her giftedness; from sisters, though they may at first be few, and seem jealous at her attempts; from the strength of husbands who will pick up the slack of family and home care needs; and supportive friends, and all others who will see her pure radiance when her gift is given.

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