Carmen Maria Machado "Her Body & Other Parties"

London, Serpent’s Tail, 2019

god should have made girls lethal
when he made monsters of men.
– ELISABETH HEWER

 

This is one of the quotes that you will find when you open Carmen Maria Machado’s short story collection, right after the dedication. There was another one on the same page but I chose this one because it stood out to me and it gives you a pretty good idea of what this book is about. So, if you think feminists are crazy and believe gender equality exists, Her Body & Other Stories probably isn’t for you.

This book is about what it’s like to live as a woman in a patriarchal society – it’s not pretty and neither are those stories. They’re raw, hurtful, sad, and unsettling. They are harrowing, eerie, provocative, and sensual. They are full of insatiable hunger and burning desire, as well as a longing to be heard, seen, and believed. You will find folk tales, legends, and ghost stories mixed with the everyday reality of 21^st century women. And here is a question for you: aren’t they all essentially the same?

If you think the things women have to put up with now are not essentially the same they were centuries ago or that we don’t live in patriarchal society anymore, then I’m afraid this book will burst your bubble with a loud pop. Even if you get paid as much as your male colleagues, even if you are not the one who has to do the cooking at home, even if your partner and/or male friends have never been anything but understanding and respectful, do think about why you feel the need to get rid of your body hair, why you feel the need to fit into a certain weight category, why you feel like you have to keep your opinions to yourself, smile more often and act friendly even when wronged. Ask yourself why you sometimes feel like you are too loud, too all over the place, too much. If you can sincerely say that you have never experienced the need to do something just to fit into some ridiculous social norms and that all you do is purely and unexceptionally for yourself, consider yourself lucky. If you have never felt the pressure to keep your mouth shut or act like you don’t actually want to punch some disrespectful idiot in the face because you have been told it’s not feminine, you should just smile and force it down, just let it go, then you are one of a kind. It is rare. And I am happy for you. But these are the things Machado makes you think about. 

Her Body & Other Parties is full of metaphors that you will easily understand if you’re a woman because you have experienced what the characters experience to at least some extent, or if you are one of the very few lucky ones that haven’t, then you know someone who has. However, it is important to stress that the author doesn’t exactly blame men for anything, she rather describes the reality of being a woman, how things are and how they could be. Is this book about hating men? No. Does the author hate men? No, I really don’t think so. Is it critical towards men? Well, yes, somewhat. (Yes, yes, we know. Not all men.) And yet at the same time I feel like it is not about men at all. I feel like it’s about women who see it all, experience it all, know deep down how wrong it is, and yet do nothing about it. And by “doing nothing about it” I do not mean changing men’s opinions or behaviour on the matter but rather refusing to accept the damaging norms of a patriarchal society. 

I don’t know, maybe this is a bit of a stretch or maybe I am overanalysing but to me a great example was the story Eight Bites (there’s a quote from it at the end of the post) where mothers teach their daughters how much, or rather how little, they should eat and what else they should do for their bodies to remain socially acceptable. It portrays how toxic and damaging it is for your daughters (or even friends or other family members, not to mention yourself) if you hate your body and/or are vocal about it. How much less work the next generations of women would have to do if we collectively decided to stop hating on our bodies and to stop forcing ourselves into “acceptable” standards … My heart breaks a little every time a friend casually makes some kind of a nasty remark about their body and I feel like we are still a long way from the world where we could no longer feel so damn brainwashed by unrealistic beauty standards. But the situation is much better than it used to be a couple of decades ago, so there’s hope.

Carmen Maria Machado’s writing is beautiful and gut-wrenching and haunting. She writes openly about sex, feminism, and queer topics. The relationships/relations in the book are both straight and queer or simply not labelled. The stories speak of body image, self-doubt, crimes, rape, trauma, mothers, daughters … Women. There’s quite a lot of sex in the book but it is there to serve the plot, it is there to make a point, not just for the sake of it (which is also absolutely fine but I’m just saying so you would know what to expect going into it).

She writes about everything and doesn’t shy away from anything. She seems to be the kind of author who refuses to feel ashamed about what she has to say and it definitely shows in her creation. It is a breath of fresh air.

Her Body & Other Parties offers so much food for thought and I recommend it to everyone who is not afraid of straightforward prose and uncomfortable truths. I would be lying if I told you that the story called The Husband Stitch did not leave an everlasting impression on me. This story also inspired the photo I took for the review. If you don’t know what a husband stitch is, I encourage you to look it up. Prepare to feel disgusted, mortified, appalled. If you think it is a fantasy, fiction, that it doesn’t happen “in real life”, think again.

In case you are interested in the story, you can find it online, you don’t need to buy the whole book to read it. I highly recommend it.

His eyes dart around for a moment before settling on my throat.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“Oh, this?” I touch the ribbon at the back of my neck. “It’s just my ribbon.” I run my fingers halfway around its green and glossy length, and bring them to rest on the tight bow that sits on the front. He reaches out his hand, and I seize it and press it away.

“You shouldn’t touch it,” I say. “You can’t touch it.”

 (...)

His eyes drift over the water and then return to me.

“Tell me about your ribbon,” he says.

“There’s nothing to tell. It’s my ribbon.”

“May I touch it?”

“No.”

“I want to touch it,” he says. His fingers twitch a little, and I close my legs and sit up straighter.

“No.” (The Husband Stitch)

He is not a bad man, and that, I realize suddenly, is the root of my hurt. He is not a bad man at all. To describe him as evil or wicked or corrupted would do a deep disservice to him. And yet – (The Husband Stitch)

I believe in a world where impossible things happen. Where love can outstrip brutality, can neutralize it, as though it never was, or transform it into something new and more beautiful. Where love can outdo nature. (Mothers)

“You fight to put names on all your dead, but not every victim wants to be known. Not all of us can deal with the illumination that comes with justice.” (Especially Heinous)

“Hips,” Chris says. “That’s what you want. Hips and enough flesh for you to grab onto, you know? What would you do without something to hold? That’s like – like –”

“Like trying to drink water without a cup,” Casey finishes.

I am always surprised at the poetry with which boys can describe boning. (Real Women Have Bodies)

“Do you hate my body, Mom?” she says. Her voice splinters in pain, as if she were about to cry. “You hated yours, clearly, but mine looks just like yours used to, so –” (Eight Bites)