Thread by @monaeltahawy

#ThisIs54

It’s not my birthday. I want you to see a 54yo woman. I’m saying “Here is a midlife woman. Look.” At a time when it seems that every time I look away, my body has changed.
📷 @rerutled

I want to be seen. Not to be told, as I often have, that I don’t “look my age.” That is not the compliment some people think it is. I understand that my power comes from saying “I am a middle aged woman. Look at me, breasts and belly and all.” feministgiant.com/p/essay-perime…

Not for all the money in the world would I go back to being younger. My 20s w/out exception and at least half my 30s were miserable because I felt I had no power. Now here I am,with more power, being told I “didn’t look” this age I feel I’ve finally earned feministgiant.com/p/essay-my-des…

I have walked towards my desire by claiming my age.

What does desire look like liberated from the pressure of heteronormativity and enforced monogamy?

What desire is a cis woman who is child free by choice “allowed” to have at 54 years of age?

Answers require shamelessness. When you are shameless, you cannot be shamed.

Few things are surrounded by more shame & silence than a cis woman who is no longer young, her vagina which is no longer wet, and her sex drive which is not supposed to exist feministgiant.com/p/moisturize-y…

Patriarchy deploys shame like a drone: it shadows you, ready to take you out any minute, exhausting you by keeping you forever aware of its presence to the detriment of all other things that you could be investing your attention in.

I am learning, much to my thrill & awe, that one of the greatest gifts of the transition known as menopause is shamelessness. It's as if instead of shedding the lining of my uterus, I am shedding the lining of patriarchal fuckery that I was socialized into feministgiant.com/p/moisturize-y…

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