The reason men can achieve their vaunted “consistency” is they have wives who take care of them; while also taking care of their cars, their kids, their homes, their pets, their families, their finances, and presumably, themselves. It’s also the reason men are famously unevolved. They trail women by eons of geological time. (That Y chromosome doesn’t seem to be doing them a lot of good, either.) Homo sapiens are the ONLY species, in the history of planet Earth, w the frontal lobes required to create truly great conditions in which everyone could live. Yet, thanks to men, we are instead on a literal path to immolate our own species, every other species, and the entire planet. Women truly ARE the medicine.
I really appreciate your essay, it hits home in ways that make sense. It is a long road to disentangle from that internalized “male gaze”, and it is so good to have support doing it.
I beg to differ. Men aren't the only reason that we are on the way to "Immolate" our species.
Women choose to have sex and then kill their offspring.
Women can't get along with other women without eventually trying to kill each other.
Some women can't see beyond themselves.
Men aren't perfect, but we work hard, we die for our families, we sacrifice our bodies, minds, and souls. Sane men don't invite complete strangers into our countries and then stand by while they attack our women and children.
Sane men don't trust easily. We don't trust authority.
That's not wrong, it just different.
Women are nurturers. Some women can't help but try to fix every broken man they see.
Women want to be able to walk down the street at night, alone, but when real men try to fix the problem, they are accused of being too aggressive.
I would beat down anyone who tried to hurt my family. My wife would try to stop me if the other man begged for his life. She wants my son to play foootball for a living, but get's mad if he even looks like he's going to get into a fight.
73 million people that might could have cured cancer, or improved our scientific understanding of the universe, or grown up to be diplomats, or farmers that could feed the world.
The women whose lives are being snuffed out, bc they couldn’t get the D&C required for the babies they wanted and lost, as the result of a miscarriage, could also have cured cancer. And all the women in college, or high school, whose lives/careers would’ve ended with a baby bc — & I don’t know if you know this? but babies have fathers, too, and those dads are ab nowhere to be found when it comes to the care and support of their children (tho they certainly seem to have been there when the sperm came out! I don’t think they were wearing a condom, tho) — would have no choice but to spend their young lives taking care of a child. Instead of, as you say, curing cancer.
Do you have cancer? I do! Not looking for aborted baby to cure it either. How about Trump/Elon — Elrump? whaydya think? — cutting cancer research for children? And Medicare & Medicaid across the board? (They largely pay for cancer treatment.) Have you heard of these things? Do you have any clue what a D&C is?
Agree! I probably should’ve taken the bait, and just run with the morons in Congress, but come on! A D&C IS AN ABORTION! & I had actually just received a message from this person telling me, “Only a moron would confuse a D&C with an abortion.” AN ABORTION IS A D&C! The context is different: whether by miscarriage or choice. But I don’t think people are widely having abortions without telling their boyfriends. I mean, yes, if it were just a sperm doner/one night stand — although I’m guessing the XX half of that drunken coupling is a total slut — a girl might not know who to tell? But in the minds of these, how did you put it? Oh, right! Cavemen!! is the small, closed minds of these cavemen, where all women are sluts and all men are just doing what comes naturally, the sluts all have abortions at roughly 38 weeks. SAY WUH?? and apparently no one ever stops to consider that if XY over here is just doing what comes naturally, is it possible that XX here is also doing what comes naturally? Idk, but ty! & I ab never engage in this kind of stuff with lunatics or caveman online, but I guess there’s a limit. (Yeah. Go ahead. Do it. Just bring up abortion in abject ignorance, you lunatic flippin cavemen, you WANNA MAKE MY DAY SO BADLY!)
But, no. Ty, again, Vijay Berry Owens — great name, btw — bc I have now worked out that I will never ever ever respond to this kind of idiocy again. Bc it will never do any good.
> The reason men can achieve their vaunted “consistency” is they have wives who take care of them; while also taking care of their cars, their kids, their homes, their pets, their families, their finances, and presumably, themselves.
Yeah? What magic explains the same for single men?
That’s your takeaway from what she said? Okay remove the bit about cars and read it again. And no. Men don’t take care of their cars: mechanics do. And who helps them drop their cars off to be repaired and then pick them up again? Their wives usually.
No mechanic touches my truck. I take care of all the yard, 14 tons of rock last summer by hand. No one takes care of my dog… your generalizations are flat wrong.
No one touches my truck but me, my gf doesn’t make me a sandwich I barbecue. No one takes care of me… so you can take all your assumptions away from my part of the comment. I wasn’t talking to you.
Assumptions? 😂 You literally said, “Men take care of their own cars” which is patently false. if you had said, “some men do their own car repairs” or “I take care of my own car” I wouldn’t have bothered responding
And, I forgot my entire reason for responding to you! I wanted to say: I am ab sure you take care of every other thing I listed as well! I deeply apologize for impugning your manhood.
I apologize. I, too, was amazed to find out my neighbor’s wife took care of her husband’s car!! By which, I only meant, she had it professionally cleaned inside and out every week. And that truly astonished me bc I don’t do that; it has frankly never even occurred to me! & I only found out bc we were chatting (A rare occurrence, as she also had ChemLawn — so I guess she took care of his yard, too — but that stuff is like Agent Orange or depleted uranium uranium!! The ChemLawn guys who sprayed their lawn every week wore HIP-HIGH WADERS!! So there is NO WAY I would cross that lawn! Bc I don’t own any waders!) And she told me, he expected her to have his car professionally immaculate every week, as it was part of their division of labor. On which, with enormous effort, I make no comment — so I hope you’ll agree — my restraint obv know no bounds. Tho in all honesty, I believe that woman took his car to be serviced every time it needed it, and regularly inspected. But I will cheerfully take cars out of that equation, as you suggest. (I’ll swap them out for yards.) Thank you for pointing that out to me! Bc I prefer to be accurate. So, despite being hearsay, it is entirely possible some men — such as yourself — do take care of their cars. (That would not apply to my ex-husband, tho!) And my apologies to you. Also, I cannot capitalize ‘men’ unless it is the first word in a sentence.
I don’t need anyone to take care of any of the things you mentioned. I raised two boys on my own. Again, you and the women who commented on your post are not speaking of men.
Holding ourselves to an artificially constructed standard of consistency also teaches us to disregard our intuition, leaving us without it when we sorely need it more than ever.
I wonder if men aren’t actually all that effective with (or served by) this 24-hour consistency cycle? As a mom of a young boy I see the ways in which he too is trapped by capitalism— which serves only to extract all it can from the cogs in its wheel (humans being one type of cog).
I am right there with you on finding rhythms that work for women, in defiance of a culture that’s kept us trapped for centuries. At the same time (in service of my son) I have been trying to build perspective around the damage it does to us all — even if not in equal measure.
I think you're right that this every day consistency ideal doesn't serve men either. Nobody is at their peak every single day, every week, every season of every year. Consistency needs to mean always keeping our top priorities first, and always being honest about our abilities. Is today a day to go beyond, or can I only handle the essentials?
I've worked with men who experienced workplace injuries, car issues, or stress around family & friends. They just needed a change of pace, or time off, and they worked on different projects for a while. This needs to be part of what we call a "good job," not just pay but teamwork, variety, and flexibility.
I love that you tied in historical ways of living that were more egalitarian; a lot of people do not realize that women had a much more dominate role than men in past cultures and it's only been the last 4,000 years in which men have been centered.
Completely agree that we need to exercise our imaginations to see a different world before we stand a chance at creating it. Sometimes I sit and wonder what the world would look like if women's needs were centered in society. The issue always comes back to money. As soon as we introduced currency that is needed for food, shelter, and medicine; women fall flat because they are also tasked with child bearing and rearing. Women on the whole, will never get to equal parity with men economically unless they don't have children, and if that goes on long enough, our society will collapse.
So what are women to do? I heard somewhere that women with children either depend on a partner to provide income, or the government, in which case the government is acting as the partner, so the system is upheld. Unsure what solutions can be solved from that, but I am starting to think feminism may have made an error by shaming women into the workforce. I recently quit my career job, starting working part-time doing physical labor and part-time hobby art, and I've never been happier. I sleep well, get to take naps, and make art that I'm proud of; perhaps part of what we need to embrace is a new status not predicated on achieving the highest possible income.
If our society were more structured around the needs of children, women would not need financial assistance. State-sponsored childcare with high quality caregivers is one way we could do this so women dont have to choose between career and family. It's done in many European countries. More flexible workdays are another way; how many jobs actually require 8 hours 5 days a week for max productivity? Stats show this is inefficient anyway, and many jobs have gone remote. So many things don't have to keep running the way we've been running them.
It was a tough read but I’m glad I did. Thank you for putting my experience into words. For allowing me to feel less alone, unbroken, and seen. For so long I’ve struggled with this. Once a US Military Service Member, a top performer in my field. I worked my ass off all while going to college, raising a child and caring for my home. The unpaid labor costs never considered. Always questioning why I was less than my male peers whose wives stayed home and did everything I did on top of working. When my child was sick, they looked down on me. The nail in the coffin was when I was working on Presidential duty, pregnant with my second child and struggling with preeclampsia. My specialty OB said “the demands of your job are too much you’re going to have a stroke”. I told them and their reply was “we are sorry, mission can’t support”. I’m working through it in my memoir but it echos the many patterns of male dominated dissonance I suffered. Despite, I’m here choosing resilience and to press on. Thank you for this piece.
Seeing the systems behind what rocked my world like a snow globe shaken too hard has been awakening. It’s been healing too. Writing my story is healing me but I hope it touches another and speaks to the reader in a way they need. I have so many questions but I feel as though I’ve begun to crack the door open to this awakening to myself and accepting our wholeness. Rejecting the idea we are inherently flawed for being women, for being neurodiverse and having needs of our own.
I have been having similar rage and conversations about “consistency” lately, I love how clearly you narrated this conversation, thank you!
I appreciate your call that we don’t create another one-size-fits-all system since even as women our own cycles are unique. I’ve been working to lean into this cycle rhythm the last few years but even these 4 week versions don’t quite fit so I am still working to find *my* natural one. I am perimenopausal and my cycle is inconsistent so I’ve been in a weird limbo of the moon cycle and my bleeding cycle not quite feeling like a grounded place to work from yet - I haven’t been able to find the predictable ebb and flow of my energy. Working from the astrological and natural seasons has felt like a more natural fit so far. With little kids in the house and being a single parent also makes things unpredictable so I’m playing with how to create space for my work in the unpredictability.
I’m curious, are you into Human Design? Learning the basics of that also helped me see my energy cycle seems to be on more like a weekly cycle than a monthly cycle (a few days of intensity, followed by a few days of rest, but that also tends to align more with my custody schedule with my kids, so maybe I can find a monthly rhythm as they become more independent.
Thanks for these reflections - perimenopause is a crazy rollercoaster time of unpredictable energy (I found, at least) but I really do appreciate having one week in every four at a slower pace even with those peaks and troughs . There is just something so unrelenting about working week after week after week, especially when for many women weekends and holidays are even less restful than weekdays!
I’d love to hear your reflections and feedback as you explore what cycle or rhythm works well for you. We can surely all benefit from trying out a number of different ways to organise life and work….. bc the current one sure isn’t working 🫠
Naz is more into Human Design than I am but it’s on my list of Subjects Of Interest I Need To Explore - thanks for the nudge 🙏
Yes to creating more space for intentional rest rather than waiting until our body demands it! I look forward to reading more about how your work around this topic unfolds.
I find that as a HD Projector the type of work I am doing makes a huge difference in my flow… creative work and being in nature feels light/nourishing, but being out at events or engaging online requires more rest afterwards.
I love living seasonally with the land because I find now that I live somewhere with true winter, when I allow myself to truly rest through winter, I start the year feeing clearer and more inspired for the year.
I'm figuring out my energy cycles too and have been following the 8 phase moon cycle, but like you my energy fluctuates a lot. I also follow Human design.
Oh..I have heard about the moon affecting especially projectors. I'm a Manifestor Generator. I think in part I don't give myself enough time to play. Play is also a kind of rest. I have a slow start to my day. I wake up early, but it's slow. My energy goes up and down during the day.
This rage is the entire reason for the title of my newsletter. But naming it ‘The Inconsistency Collective’ has also given me inherit permission to change what I want to do artistically as I discover ideas, to work in rhythm with my AuDHD, which has a long slow lens and a short, always moving lens operating at the same time. I’m interested in the consistency of my own rhythm, which outwardly might appear inconsistent, but inwardly feels anything but.
Finally an explanation for why I can do anything for ~3 weeks and then falter. Yes, I'm post-menopause, but even if the hormones don't fluctuate as wildly as they did, fluctuate they do.
I deeply appreciate your laying bare of what keeps us stuck, the evidence of successful alternatives that did a much better job for _everyone_, and, especially, that 4-week cycle. It should work extremely well with another productivity tip (that also works for males): batching work instead of doing tidbits every day.
Goodness there is so much to unravel where do we start as a society? Who will take notice? I agree 100 %with the message here. I am 71 and experienced burn out as a teacher back in thexearly 2000s. I carried those expectations that I had to perform consistently. Everything became goal and results orientated, no accounting for the fact I operated differently to a system designed for men. So when I couldn't maintain "the performance" I was effectively pushed out having been made to feel I couldn't manage the workload. I did get HR on my side who supported my complaint that the workload I had been given was too much for the time I was allocated. I did so much in my own time..but that had to stop. It wasn't sustainable. I was made to feel I was at fault not the other way round I was moved to a different class which was hell on earth. I couldn't wait to leave and I gave up teaching. Classic! I'm still angry even now I've been retired 15 years.I can see my own conditioning in all this....work harder etc.
Oh wow Rachel. We were just talking about this yesterday, I didn't realise it was going to pop up in another great post!
I'm currently in week 1 and yes I can tell, this is something that I've noticed in myself and have changed how I work without knowing all the science or details behind it.
I shared a note recently wondering whether there's also a connection between cycle and lucid, prophetic quality dreaming. I'm a huge dreamer but I notice it takes on a very different quality around certain times of my cycle.
I agree and would be beneficial in our now globalized society.
Even as a guy (single, no kids), my introverted nature has me operating primarily from early afternoon to midnight, when the world is emptier and quieter. Sometimes I go 1.5 days on, 1 off, but it's only due to operating on self-employed hours.
I’ve been naturally leaning towards this since the pandemic. There’s one week a month where I am superwoman in terms of doing ALL the Things. Then there’s a few days a month where only the absolutely necessary gets accomplished. But it all gets done and I am much more productive with less stress.
I went down a rabbit hole learning about that Çatalhöyük place. It was like a mud apartment complex, almost. Everyone climbed out holes in the tops and walked around on the roofs. It was described as being really clean, because they all cleaned up after themselves better than most other civilizations at the same time period, I guess. I wish those people were still around.
One thing I read said they might have raised each other's children. Like they shared children and tools, but certain jugs or something were not as evenly distributed.
In general I agree and really appreciate this perspective. But what about the things that *must* be done every day? If I parented my child only in alignment with my cycle, like I would in a knowledge work job, someone would call CPS on me immediately. And we need to eat every day, so someone has to cook every day and also farm the food - animal husbandry never gets a day off. I support rethinking 24/7 availability, wholeheartedly. But what alternative is sustainable for unpaid daily life things?
Like I said in the article, it’s not like we are ever going to entirely stop our unpaid work. We want to be there for our kids. We need to eat. And so on.
But there’s also a handing back of responsibility where it belongs (ie not doing for others what they can actually do themselves, or share more equitably with you)
And I believe discussion of how caring and other forms of unpaid labour might be acknowledged, reimbursed, etc would also be healthy. Making the invisible and taken for granted visible AF.
This article pays particular focus on what we do about organising our *paid* work better - and that really applies to women who have their own businesses, as it’s hard to do within most paid employment, as I describe, as these are in the main toxic superstructures of the system.
Just naming what is actually fairly obvious when you think about it: if women are working 12/14/16 hour days (if you tot up all the paid and unpaid) - there is no mystery that we are more tired, depressed, anxious etc than men. Something has to give.
We need more women building better alternative systems. And scaling sustainably, so they can offer realistic alternatives to others wanting to be employed but not under the current rules we are subjected to.
Handing back responsibility where it belongs and making invisible work visible both sound very important, and basically a call to MEN to start paying attention and being less selfish 🙃
The reason men can achieve their vaunted “consistency” is they have wives who take care of them; while also taking care of their cars, their kids, their homes, their pets, their families, their finances, and presumably, themselves. It’s also the reason men are famously unevolved. They trail women by eons of geological time. (That Y chromosome doesn’t seem to be doing them a lot of good, either.) Homo sapiens are the ONLY species, in the history of planet Earth, w the frontal lobes required to create truly great conditions in which everyone could live. Yet, thanks to men, we are instead on a literal path to immolate our own species, every other species, and the entire planet. Women truly ARE the medicine.
Truth.
And it’s time for women to put our collective feet down.
Because no woman can be medicine for herself, anyone else, or the world when she is dying of exhaustion.
Enough is enough!
I really appreciate your essay, it hits home in ways that make sense. It is a long road to disentangle from that internalized “male gaze”, and it is so good to have support doing it.
I agree with you. Take some time, relax.
I'm not the one saying you have to work 9-5 five days a week.
I beg to differ. Men aren't the only reason that we are on the way to "Immolate" our species.
Women choose to have sex and then kill their offspring.
Women can't get along with other women without eventually trying to kill each other.
Some women can't see beyond themselves.
Men aren't perfect, but we work hard, we die for our families, we sacrifice our bodies, minds, and souls. Sane men don't invite complete strangers into our countries and then stand by while they attack our women and children.
Sane men don't trust easily. We don't trust authority.
That's not wrong, it just different.
Women are nurturers. Some women can't help but try to fix every broken man they see.
Women want to be able to walk down the street at night, alone, but when real men try to fix the problem, they are accused of being too aggressive.
I would beat down anyone who tried to hurt my family. My wife would try to stop me if the other man begged for his life. She wants my son to play foootball for a living, but get's mad if he even looks like he's going to get into a fight.
Like I said...different.
No, women do not choose to have babies and kill off our offspring! You are bordering on comical, dude.
We’ve just banned this user from our Substack community.
The reason? A comment that multiple women flagged as inappropriate and harmful.
This space is not neutral. It is intentional.
We are building a community where women are safe, sovereign, and free to express their truths without fear of backlash or erasure.
Every woman has the inalienable right to decide what happens to her body, her life, her voice.
We will not tolerate anyone entering this space and trying to undermine that right.
If that offends you, this is not the space for you.
If that affirms you — welcome. You belong here.
How do abortions affect you?
73 million people that might could have cured cancer, or improved our scientific understanding of the universe, or grown up to be diplomats, or farmers that could feed the world.
Life is precious. Destroying it a crime.
The women whose lives are being snuffed out, bc they couldn’t get the D&C required for the babies they wanted and lost, as the result of a miscarriage, could also have cured cancer. And all the women in college, or high school, whose lives/careers would’ve ended with a baby bc — & I don’t know if you know this? but babies have fathers, too, and those dads are ab nowhere to be found when it comes to the care and support of their children (tho they certainly seem to have been there when the sperm came out! I don’t think they were wearing a condom, tho) — would have no choice but to spend their young lives taking care of a child. Instead of, as you say, curing cancer.
Do you have cancer? I do! Not looking for aborted baby to cure it either. How about Trump/Elon — Elrump? whaydya think? — cutting cancer research for children? And Medicare & Medicaid across the board? (They largely pay for cancer treatment.) Have you heard of these things? Do you have any clue what a D&C is?
In this case it appears that “different” = caveman style but you do you I guess
Agree! I probably should’ve taken the bait, and just run with the morons in Congress, but come on! A D&C IS AN ABORTION! & I had actually just received a message from this person telling me, “Only a moron would confuse a D&C with an abortion.” AN ABORTION IS A D&C! The context is different: whether by miscarriage or choice. But I don’t think people are widely having abortions without telling their boyfriends. I mean, yes, if it were just a sperm doner/one night stand — although I’m guessing the XX half of that drunken coupling is a total slut — a girl might not know who to tell? But in the minds of these, how did you put it? Oh, right! Cavemen!! is the small, closed minds of these cavemen, where all women are sluts and all men are just doing what comes naturally, the sluts all have abortions at roughly 38 weeks. SAY WUH?? and apparently no one ever stops to consider that if XY over here is just doing what comes naturally, is it possible that XX here is also doing what comes naturally? Idk, but ty! & I ab never engage in this kind of stuff with lunatics or caveman online, but I guess there’s a limit. (Yeah. Go ahead. Do it. Just bring up abortion in abject ignorance, you lunatic flippin cavemen, you WANNA MAKE MY DAY SO BADLY!)
But, no. Ty, again, Vijay Berry Owens — great name, btw — bc I have now worked out that I will never ever ever respond to this kind of idiocy again. Bc it will never do any good.
No, not caveman style, just being a masculine man.
Unlike most, I'm Gen X.
I had to learn to defend myself.
I had to use that to defend others.
I turned my bullies into my friends.
I am not afraid of guns, knives, or fistfights.
I am not afraid of the dark
I am not afraid of the monsters that live in the dark.
I work for an agency that keeps monsters off the street.
I want my son to be a man who can do all of these things
and not be afraid.
What's up, I am Gen X and my experience has been very different from yours. What is it about this post that feels like an attack on your identity?
*finger snaps
> The reason men can achieve their vaunted “consistency” is they have wives who take care of them; while also taking care of their cars, their kids, their homes, their pets, their families, their finances, and presumably, themselves.
Yeah? What magic explains the same for single men?
Ooh! You can Google! So what are you on about now?
. . .not true.
Many men take care of themselves.
Lol as men we're expected to.
I don't know what kind of men you grew up around but speaking as a non married man.. . I handle my own.
Cook 4 myself, clean 4 myself etc.
Have been for a while now.
Men take care of their own cars… not sure what you are talking about here, but those are not Men you describe.
That’s your takeaway from what she said? Okay remove the bit about cars and read it again. And no. Men don’t take care of their cars: mechanics do. And who helps them drop their cars off to be repaired and then pick them up again? Their wives usually.
No mechanic touches my truck. I take care of all the yard, 14 tons of rock last summer by hand. No one takes care of my dog… your generalizations are flat wrong.
No one touches my truck but me, my gf doesn’t make me a sandwich I barbecue. No one takes care of me… so you can take all your assumptions away from my part of the comment. I wasn’t talking to you.
Assumptions? 😂 You literally said, “Men take care of their own cars” which is patently false. if you had said, “some men do their own car repairs” or “I take care of my own car” I wouldn’t have bothered responding
Enjoy your literal man hating life.
😂
And, I forgot my entire reason for responding to you! I wanted to say: I am ab sure you take care of every other thing I listed as well! I deeply apologize for impugning your manhood.
I apologize. I, too, was amazed to find out my neighbor’s wife took care of her husband’s car!! By which, I only meant, she had it professionally cleaned inside and out every week. And that truly astonished me bc I don’t do that; it has frankly never even occurred to me! & I only found out bc we were chatting (A rare occurrence, as she also had ChemLawn — so I guess she took care of his yard, too — but that stuff is like Agent Orange or depleted uranium uranium!! The ChemLawn guys who sprayed their lawn every week wore HIP-HIGH WADERS!! So there is NO WAY I would cross that lawn! Bc I don’t own any waders!) And she told me, he expected her to have his car professionally immaculate every week, as it was part of their division of labor. On which, with enormous effort, I make no comment — so I hope you’ll agree — my restraint obv know no bounds. Tho in all honesty, I believe that woman took his car to be serviced every time it needed it, and regularly inspected. But I will cheerfully take cars out of that equation, as you suggest. (I’ll swap them out for yards.) Thank you for pointing that out to me! Bc I prefer to be accurate. So, despite being hearsay, it is entirely possible some men — such as yourself — do take care of their cars. (That would not apply to my ex-husband, tho!) And my apologies to you. Also, I cannot capitalize ‘men’ unless it is the first word in a sentence.
I don’t need anyone to take care of any of the things you mentioned. I raised two boys on my own. Again, you and the women who commented on your post are not speaking of men.
Then what are they speaking of, because it sounds like they are talking about men in general.
Holding ourselves to an artificially constructed standard of consistency also teaches us to disregard our intuition, leaving us without it when we sorely need it more than ever.
I wonder if men aren’t actually all that effective with (or served by) this 24-hour consistency cycle? As a mom of a young boy I see the ways in which he too is trapped by capitalism— which serves only to extract all it can from the cogs in its wheel (humans being one type of cog).
I am right there with you on finding rhythms that work for women, in defiance of a culture that’s kept us trapped for centuries. At the same time (in service of my son) I have been trying to build perspective around the damage it does to us all — even if not in equal measure.
You are 💯 correct - the current system serves no one well, except a handful of billionaires perhaps - but even they are wounded most terribly.
When women build we’re building for all. Not just ourselves.
I think you're right that this every day consistency ideal doesn't serve men either. Nobody is at their peak every single day, every week, every season of every year. Consistency needs to mean always keeping our top priorities first, and always being honest about our abilities. Is today a day to go beyond, or can I only handle the essentials?
I've worked with men who experienced workplace injuries, car issues, or stress around family & friends. They just needed a change of pace, or time off, and they worked on different projects for a while. This needs to be part of what we call a "good job," not just pay but teamwork, variety, and flexibility.
I love that you tied in historical ways of living that were more egalitarian; a lot of people do not realize that women had a much more dominate role than men in past cultures and it's only been the last 4,000 years in which men have been centered.
Completely agree that we need to exercise our imaginations to see a different world before we stand a chance at creating it. Sometimes I sit and wonder what the world would look like if women's needs were centered in society. The issue always comes back to money. As soon as we introduced currency that is needed for food, shelter, and medicine; women fall flat because they are also tasked with child bearing and rearing. Women on the whole, will never get to equal parity with men economically unless they don't have children, and if that goes on long enough, our society will collapse.
So what are women to do? I heard somewhere that women with children either depend on a partner to provide income, or the government, in which case the government is acting as the partner, so the system is upheld. Unsure what solutions can be solved from that, but I am starting to think feminism may have made an error by shaming women into the workforce. I recently quit my career job, starting working part-time doing physical labor and part-time hobby art, and I've never been happier. I sleep well, get to take naps, and make art that I'm proud of; perhaps part of what we need to embrace is a new status not predicated on achieving the highest possible income.
If our society were more structured around the needs of children, women would not need financial assistance. State-sponsored childcare with high quality caregivers is one way we could do this so women dont have to choose between career and family. It's done in many European countries. More flexible workdays are another way; how many jobs actually require 8 hours 5 days a week for max productivity? Stats show this is inefficient anyway, and many jobs have gone remote. So many things don't have to keep running the way we've been running them.
It was a tough read but I’m glad I did. Thank you for putting my experience into words. For allowing me to feel less alone, unbroken, and seen. For so long I’ve struggled with this. Once a US Military Service Member, a top performer in my field. I worked my ass off all while going to college, raising a child and caring for my home. The unpaid labor costs never considered. Always questioning why I was less than my male peers whose wives stayed home and did everything I did on top of working. When my child was sick, they looked down on me. The nail in the coffin was when I was working on Presidential duty, pregnant with my second child and struggling with preeclampsia. My specialty OB said “the demands of your job are too much you’re going to have a stroke”. I told them and their reply was “we are sorry, mission can’t support”. I’m working through it in my memoir but it echos the many patterns of male dominated dissonance I suffered. Despite, I’m here choosing resilience and to press on. Thank you for this piece.
Thank you so much for sharing your story 💚🌿
So glad you are creating a memoir - we really, really need the world to hear more stories like this.
You’d hope people would have got it by now, but sadly not - such a good job of normalising and making invisible 😖
Seeing the systems behind what rocked my world like a snow globe shaken too hard has been awakening. It’s been healing too. Writing my story is healing me but I hope it touches another and speaks to the reader in a way they need. I have so many questions but I feel as though I’ve begun to crack the door open to this awakening to myself and accepting our wholeness. Rejecting the idea we are inherently flawed for being women, for being neurodiverse and having needs of our own.
I have been having similar rage and conversations about “consistency” lately, I love how clearly you narrated this conversation, thank you!
I appreciate your call that we don’t create another one-size-fits-all system since even as women our own cycles are unique. I’ve been working to lean into this cycle rhythm the last few years but even these 4 week versions don’t quite fit so I am still working to find *my* natural one. I am perimenopausal and my cycle is inconsistent so I’ve been in a weird limbo of the moon cycle and my bleeding cycle not quite feeling like a grounded place to work from yet - I haven’t been able to find the predictable ebb and flow of my energy. Working from the astrological and natural seasons has felt like a more natural fit so far. With little kids in the house and being a single parent also makes things unpredictable so I’m playing with how to create space for my work in the unpredictability.
I’m curious, are you into Human Design? Learning the basics of that also helped me see my energy cycle seems to be on more like a weekly cycle than a monthly cycle (a few days of intensity, followed by a few days of rest, but that also tends to align more with my custody schedule with my kids, so maybe I can find a monthly rhythm as they become more independent.
Thanks for these reflections - perimenopause is a crazy rollercoaster time of unpredictable energy (I found, at least) but I really do appreciate having one week in every four at a slower pace even with those peaks and troughs . There is just something so unrelenting about working week after week after week, especially when for many women weekends and holidays are even less restful than weekdays!
I’d love to hear your reflections and feedback as you explore what cycle or rhythm works well for you. We can surely all benefit from trying out a number of different ways to organise life and work….. bc the current one sure isn’t working 🫠
Naz is more into Human Design than I am but it’s on my list of Subjects Of Interest I Need To Explore - thanks for the nudge 🙏
Yes to creating more space for intentional rest rather than waiting until our body demands it! I look forward to reading more about how your work around this topic unfolds.
I find that as a HD Projector the type of work I am doing makes a huge difference in my flow… creative work and being in nature feels light/nourishing, but being out at events or engaging online requires more rest afterwards.
I love living seasonally with the land because I find now that I live somewhere with true winter, when I allow myself to truly rest through winter, I start the year feeing clearer and more inspired for the year.
I'm figuring out my energy cycles too and have been following the 8 phase moon cycle, but like you my energy fluctuates a lot. I also follow Human design.
I’m a Projector, so I definitely find I have tighter ebb and flow cycles, but I definitely require rest on the new and full moons no matter what!
Which are you and how does the moon cycles work for you?
Oh..I have heard about the moon affecting especially projectors. I'm a Manifestor Generator. I think in part I don't give myself enough time to play. Play is also a kind of rest. I have a slow start to my day. I wake up early, but it's slow. My energy goes up and down during the day.
Oh that is funny - I am a slow and early riser with sunrise too! I appreciate the reminder to play, I probably short myself on that a lot.
This rage is the entire reason for the title of my newsletter. But naming it ‘The Inconsistency Collective’ has also given me inherit permission to change what I want to do artistically as I discover ideas, to work in rhythm with my AuDHD, which has a long slow lens and a short, always moving lens operating at the same time. I’m interested in the consistency of my own rhythm, which outwardly might appear inconsistent, but inwardly feels anything but.
Finally an explanation for why I can do anything for ~3 weeks and then falter. Yes, I'm post-menopause, but even if the hormones don't fluctuate as wildly as they did, fluctuate they do.
I deeply appreciate your laying bare of what keeps us stuck, the evidence of successful alternatives that did a much better job for _everyone_, and, especially, that 4-week cycle. It should work extremely well with another productivity tip (that also works for males): batching work instead of doing tidbits every day.
Male advice from males about consistency: 100% guaranteed to make me feel fickle and inadequate. And yes, see red.
Goodness there is so much to unravel where do we start as a society? Who will take notice? I agree 100 %with the message here. I am 71 and experienced burn out as a teacher back in thexearly 2000s. I carried those expectations that I had to perform consistently. Everything became goal and results orientated, no accounting for the fact I operated differently to a system designed for men. So when I couldn't maintain "the performance" I was effectively pushed out having been made to feel I couldn't manage the workload. I did get HR on my side who supported my complaint that the workload I had been given was too much for the time I was allocated. I did so much in my own time..but that had to stop. It wasn't sustainable. I was made to feel I was at fault not the other way round I was moved to a different class which was hell on earth. I couldn't wait to leave and I gave up teaching. Classic! I'm still angry even now I've been retired 15 years.I can see my own conditioning in all this....work harder etc.
Oh wow Rachel. We were just talking about this yesterday, I didn't realise it was going to pop up in another great post!
I'm currently in week 1 and yes I can tell, this is something that I've noticed in myself and have changed how I work without knowing all the science or details behind it.
I shared a note recently wondering whether there's also a connection between cycle and lucid, prophetic quality dreaming. I'm a huge dreamer but I notice it takes on a very different quality around certain times of my cycle.
So interesting! - yes, I have phases of dreaming differently: more vividly, lucidly.
Will you share your Note please? 🙏
I tagged you in the the note 🙂
I agree and would be beneficial in our now globalized society.
Even as a guy (single, no kids), my introverted nature has me operating primarily from early afternoon to midnight, when the world is emptier and quieter. Sometimes I go 1.5 days on, 1 off, but it's only due to operating on self-employed hours.
I’ve been naturally leaning towards this since the pandemic. There’s one week a month where I am superwoman in terms of doing ALL the Things. Then there’s a few days a month where only the absolutely necessary gets accomplished. But it all gets done and I am much more productive with less stress.
"THIS ISN'T A BUG IN OUR SYSTEM. IT'S A FEATURE."
Oh, thank you for this!
I went down a rabbit hole learning about that Çatalhöyük place. It was like a mud apartment complex, almost. Everyone climbed out holes in the tops and walked around on the roofs. It was described as being really clean, because they all cleaned up after themselves better than most other civilizations at the same time period, I guess. I wish those people were still around.
It’s really fascinating isn’t it?
The thing that stood out for me was that they slept and lived over bones - the bones of the dead actually under their hearths.
And that the bones weren’t close relations - they didn’t live in nuclear families, the ancestor bones were everyone’s ancestors 🤔
The more I think about them, the more I can feel my usual frames and lenses for understanding the world being stretched and challenged!
For anyone else interested >> https://youtube.com/shorts/h4pOK1zs4S8?si=WrNwbtWlmQcD_8CK
One thing I read said they might have raised each other's children. Like they shared children and tools, but certain jugs or something were not as evenly distributed.
In general I agree and really appreciate this perspective. But what about the things that *must* be done every day? If I parented my child only in alignment with my cycle, like I would in a knowledge work job, someone would call CPS on me immediately. And we need to eat every day, so someone has to cook every day and also farm the food - animal husbandry never gets a day off. I support rethinking 24/7 availability, wholeheartedly. But what alternative is sustainable for unpaid daily life things?
Like I said in the article, it’s not like we are ever going to entirely stop our unpaid work. We want to be there for our kids. We need to eat. And so on.
But there’s also a handing back of responsibility where it belongs (ie not doing for others what they can actually do themselves, or share more equitably with you)
And I believe discussion of how caring and other forms of unpaid labour might be acknowledged, reimbursed, etc would also be healthy. Making the invisible and taken for granted visible AF.
This article pays particular focus on what we do about organising our *paid* work better - and that really applies to women who have their own businesses, as it’s hard to do within most paid employment, as I describe, as these are in the main toxic superstructures of the system.
Just naming what is actually fairly obvious when you think about it: if women are working 12/14/16 hour days (if you tot up all the paid and unpaid) - there is no mystery that we are more tired, depressed, anxious etc than men. Something has to give.
We need more women building better alternative systems. And scaling sustainably, so they can offer realistic alternatives to others wanting to be employed but not under the current rules we are subjected to.
Handing back responsibility where it belongs and making invisible work visible both sound very important, and basically a call to MEN to start paying attention and being less selfish 🙃
💯