I know you hate me

VALERIJA MALASHEVICH

Statement Columnist

This is a tale as old as time, but 

when I was in high school, I — like 
virtually everyone else my age — 
was going through a lot. Mentally, 
physically, spiritually, psychologically 
and all the other -ly’s. I was planting 
a seed for my own future, which is a 
notoriously difficult task for someone 
so young and often ushers in plenty 
of unanticipated troubles. We start 
to put things that don’t matter before 
things that do or — as my parents say 
— we put the cart before the horse.

Most of the decisions we tend to 

make as 15-year-olds end up being 
half-assed, inconsequential or just 
plain 
dimwitted. 
We 
convince 

ourselves we love people when, truly, 
we do not, we allow things to occupy 
our minds that do not deserve such 
real estate and, most importantly, we 
tell ourselves that the decisions we 
make now will withstand the test of 
time. We tell ourselves that we had 
choices in the first place, cemented in 
rock and resistant to decay. 

I made a lot of these so-called 

choices in my younger, and more 
vulnerable, years (if you want to call 
them that). I chose a profession that I 
had no interest in pursuing and failed 
to realize that medical school posed 
a dead end for me. It sparked no joy. 
Nothing.

I chose to make my happiness 

contingent on certain individuals, 
and when they left, I let the pillows 
soak up my tears until there wasn’t 
any more space left on it to cry. I 
disregarded my parents and acted 

as if I could shed them like the skin 
of a lizard, simply because I had 
seemingly put on my big girl pants. 
I acted like I didn’t need them 
anymore. And that hurt them.

But luckily, most of these decisions 

were the same: inconsequential. I 
received opportunities to re-envision 
my career path and frame it within 
a broader perspective. I’ve come to 
realize that while friends and lovers 
are things that come and go, my 
parents (and their love) do not. Their 
compassion is truly one of the only 
things I have witnessed withstand 
turmoil, troubles and time.

The other thing that seems to 

remain grounded within me are the 
pinky promises I make to myself. 
The pledges I make staring into the 
mirror, telling myself that self-love is 
not finite and that it is possible to love 
yourself more each and every day. 
The laments to start doing more and 
overthinking less, to stop the meat 
organ in my skull from dictating all 
of the “do nots” and “why nots” and 
“should nots” that infest my stream of 
consciousness.

And one of those pinky promises 

has been one of the hardest decisions 
I’ve ever made in my life — and I 
committed to it during the most 
tender years of my life. I had to bite 
through skin and bone to know I 
wanted it for sure: I decided early on 
that, if nothing else, children would 
be an impediment for my future. 

I was only 15. 
I spent years and years grieving, 

sifting through articles titled “Top 10 
reasons to become child-free,” hoping 
to find a slice of validation through 
anonymous messages on Tumblr and 

upvoted posts on Reddit.

At this point, my anger toward 

children fueled my pursuit for a child-
free lifestyle. I wanted nothing to do 
with babies — they carry germs like 
14th-century monks, wail like cicadas 
in the summertime and look more 
fragile than porcelain dishes. They 
are an incredible mix of everything I 
can’t seem to tolerate.

I remember telling my parents and 

grandparents, with anger seeping 
through my teeth and revenge rolling 
off my tongue, that I would abstain 
from having children. It felt like a 
protest, to turn away from a role that 
(even now) many working, young, 
Russian women are expected to 
embrace. I was too young and hungry 
with power, and while I see that now, 
it seems wrong to deny how delicious 
my quiet rebellion tasted.

It was a directed anger, and one I 

am not necessarily proud of anymore 
— but it was directed toward a real 
villain: A society that unabashedly 
assumes people with uteruses were 
born to be mothers.

I was only 17.
Being 17 was far from perfect, and 

it definitely came nowhere close to 
the expectations for a period that is 
often dubbed as “the golden years.” 
I grew as a person, for sure, but at 
a considerable cost — I sacrificed 
so much of myself for material 
achievements.

Maybe it was wrong or maybe 

it wasn’t, but I started to value 
professional pursuits and hedonic 
interests over everything else. In my 
mind, I was in a coming-of-age party-
girl movie, and while I was young and 
reckless, I was everything but stupid.

Sure, 
I 
would 
attend 
those 

somewhat lame high school parties 
in those slightly smelly houses on 
streets with names I couldn’t recall 
because they all sound the same in 
Vegas, anyway. Hualapai Way. Oasis 
Cove. Sunset Boulevard. Tropical 
Parkway and Fort Apache Road. 
However, I wouldn’t dare leave 
my house without knowing I had 
submitted the Common App essays 
that were due that night.

My parents had forgotten the 

words for how to tell me to do my 
homework, and they often didn’t 
know I had any. 

S T A T E M E N T

4 — Wednesday, July 27, 2022
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Priya Ganji/Daily
Read more at michigandaily.com

Bitches, sluts and 

other deviant women

Content warning: Mentions of 

sexual assault and violent language

Deviant women are a natural 

byproduct of a patriarchal society. 
Deviancy is not one-size-fits-all; 
instead, a woman can stray away 
from normality in a plethora of 
unique ways. By definition, “gender 
deviance” is any stray away from 
gendered and sexual social norms. 
Most often, deviancy in women is 
prescribed as a result of sexuality, 
emotionality, egoism, autonomy and 
demanding personhood. Essentially, 
having a personality and body that is 
anything other than submissive, small 
and docile holds an innate unruliness 
per the ideals held by the patriarchy. 
Additionally, any identity or behavior 
not approved by the homogeneity of 
power in the United States is at risk of 
deviancy. So at its very heart, America 
hates its women — especially women 
who dabble in deviancy.

Rather 
depressingly, 
a 
large 

portion of girlhood is dedicated to 
avoiding the perils of deviousness. 
Girls, including my younger self, are 
taught how to center male attention, 
idolize emaciated bodies and enter 
competitions with any other girl in 
our vicinity. The link between this 
social education and misogyny is 
undeniable — girls are indoctrinated 
into patriarchy as early as possible. 
From the very beginning, we are 
taught 
by 
our 
environment 
to 

ostracize deviant girls, even if it just 
starts as refusing to invite a girl who 

AVA BURZYCKI
Statement Columnist

strays away from gender norms to 
an elementary school sleepover. As a 
young girl, only aged around 10 or 11, 
I already had a steady stream of this 
beginner’s misogyny directed my 
way. Friendly scraped knees on the 
blacktop and harmless playground 
taunts turned into gendered insults 
and 
the 
precursors 
of 
taught 

objectification. By middle school, I 
gravitated away from nearly all of 
my male friends, and the final few 
had only seemed to stick around to 
practice their prepubescent flirting. 
When I refused, I became just a bitch 
to them.

My own bitchiness is just one of 

the many categories that deviant 
women can fall into — others include, 
but aren’t limited to, sluts, prudes and 
attention-whores. Each category has 
a unique blend of sexuality, autonomy 
and vulnerability, and acts more 
as a sliding-scale axis than strictly 
defined categories. Descriptors like 
crazy, stupid, ugly, dramatic and 
feminist can all be distasteful add-
ons; after all, even misogynists can 
acknowledge some of the uniqueness 
in each woman. It is crucial to note, 
too, how racism, homophobia and 
transphobia contribute to the idea 
of female deviance. Women of 
intersecting marginalized identities 
are punished quicker and harder 
than 
their 
counterparts. 
And, 

like all moral panics, women who 
deviate 
from 
heteropatriarchal 

ideals receive every potential form 
of interpersonal, social and cultural 
punishment. 

Jennie Vang/Daily

Read more at michigandaily.com

