What do you do with all that pain? I wonder if a single day goes by in the life of any human being anywhere on earth that is not stained by some form of pain or suffering. As babies, not a single one of us is born with a survival handbook, but instinctively, we know our release valve for pain is to cry. As children, we advance to tantrums as a release of frustration and pain, and it's up to a parent to talk us off the ledge or put us into solitary confinement as a lesson in self-management of our pain. As teens, we begin to learn there are differing gender rules for the expression of pain.
Recently, I witnessed two teenage boys inside a glass-sheltered bus station throwing fists like wild animals trying to inflict and release pain simultaneously. Not that fist fights are officially condoned, or the preferred option of pain release in a public space. However, fights are synonymous with the right of passage to manhood.
The point is that boys and men use violence as an outlet to release pain. It's not the socially preferred or the healthiest outlet, but when we say boys-will-be-boys, we grant males amnesty to use anger and violence as an outlet for their pain. In fact, its seeds planted when a mother threatens kids to wait til your father gets home, or we put swords and guns in the hands of boys and license them to kill in the name of religion or patriotism.
The social configuration is different for girls. We don't say girls-will-be-girls and tap them softly on the head with understanding and forgiveness after they channel anger or rage as an outlet for their pain. Angry outbursts from girls are un-woman-like and unfeminine, and girl-on-girl fights are considered more circus freak side shows and not to be had outside a mud pit or in an octagon cage where promoters can collect their profits.
So, where is the public outlet for female pain? How much of it can she swallow? How big must her heart be to contain the pain that men are condoned to release in aggression and violence, often on the very bodies or the psyche of women? Where are her outlets to vent and release? Or are women condemned to become a hurt locker - military slang for a small, confined space reserved to contain and confine deep pain and discomfort under lock and key?
In essence, under the decorum of womanhood or being ladylike, women are expected to contain and conceal life's pain and hurt without any public outlet. That's unless she can swallow her shame and regress to her infant state and cry. Many women try to conform and live their entire lives as hurt lockers; however, the compression of pain into a confined space over a lifetime has consequences. If it's not a physical disease, her pain metastasizes into hopeless suffering. Women's suffering is ubiquitous and communal. If she can't rage, she's shamed to cry, and any show of violence is unbecoming of her gender; what remains can only be expressed as her art.
Over a decade ago, Jamie Louise Madigan's heart cracked open. The remnants of her pain span over the pages of a poetry book literally exploding with passion, pain, and self-discovery titled Lipstick Stains and Coffee Cups. We share that conversation in VBB #312.
