Things I Don't Want to Know 

by 

Deborah Levy

 

Escaping Woman Traps

Trapped by hormones. Trapped by children and familial affections. Trapped by pervasive patriarchy. Trapped by social expectations and professional barriers. Trapped by the vagaries of the time, place and circumstances of birth. Trapped by legal injustice. Trapped by misogyny. Trapped (sometimes) by being Jewish. And trapped (if you’re English) by Brillo pads and West Finchley. It’s a jungle out there for every woman. 

Nature and nurture systematically conspire to make life miserable for half the world’s population. Awareness of the depths of this oppression only increases the intensity of the pain suffered. Writing is a form of therapy, not because it improves the situation or reduces the pain but because it’s an escape, and even sometimes an acceptable form of revenge against those who do bad things to other people, particularly to women.

If you’re good at writing, you can express rage at being trapped in a very controlled but deliberate way. And you know when rage can be transformed into humour or pathos. But you must, if you’re a woman, also know how to forget: “A female writer cannot afford to feel her life too clearly. If she does, she will write in a rage when she should write calmly.” Perhaps this is the only effective escape, to write calmly in order to forget.