About respecting your own needs

[cjsmith]

“The Crane Wife” is a story from Japanese folklore. I found a copy in the reserve’s gift shop among the baseball caps and bumper stickers that said GIVE A WHOOP. In the story, there is a crane who tricks a man into thinking she is a woman so she can marry him. She loves him, but knows that he will not love her if she is a crane so she spends every night plucking out all of her feathers with her beak. She hopes that he will not see what she really is: a bird who must be cared for, a bird capable of flight, a creature, with creature needs. Every morning, the crane-wife is exhausted, but she is a woman again. To keep becoming a woman is so much self-erasing work. She never sleeps. She plucks out all her feathers, one by one.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/16/the-crane-wife/

Comments

[lauradi7dw]

I expected this story, which has been all over twitter
https://www.theverge.com/2015/4/10/8373399/meet-walnut-the-crane-who-fell-in-love-with-her-zookeeper

[cjsmith]

That's what eventually led to my discovery of this one, yeah. :)

[minoanmiss]

*shudders*

I have a much cheerfuller Crane WIfe to tell you about in exchange:

https://naryrising.tumblr.com/post/664210796426969088

[cjsmith]

Isn't that wild? What a situation!

I did read this story as cheerful in the long run. She figured it out. ♥

[hitchhiker]

she did, and that makes a big difference! but still, it's sad the choices women get subjected to.

[cjsmith]

What we do when we raise children to think they are unworthy and unloveable is cruelly destructive.

[minoanmiss]

yay! :D

[siliconshaman]

In the version of this story I know, the husband eventually discovers she's a crane, and when she tries to flee fearing his rejection, he holds onto her tight and tells her he loves her for who she is, not what. (I paraphrase, in the actual story he lists her many good qualities as a wife, and composes a poem to her beauty and grace. Needless to say, she's still skeptical but stays.)

He tells her to get some sleep, and sits with her while she sleeps until sunset the next day. Then scolds her (gently) for ruining her beautiful feathers which grew back in while she slept. At that point she believes he's for real, and says that if she could she'd marry him again.

I think I prefer that version, even if it's probably not authentic.

[cjsmith]

That sounds lovely! If it is not authentic, I wish it were; it would speak of a society trying to teach “valuing the right things” (if that phrasing makes any sense).

[labelleizzy]

Thank you for sharing that version, that's the one I thought I remembered.

[hitchhiker]

a much better version, for sure. and who knows, it may well be authentic, since "accept magical beings for who they are" is not an uncommon theme in folktales.

[noelfigart]

Sounds about right...

*sighs*

[cjsmith]

It speaks strongly to us because it is so damn true.

[amaebi]

An interesting sad pair with selfie wife stories.

[cjsmith]

If autocorrect sniped you and you meant selkie, absolutely.

It’s fascinating that humanity invents mythical creatures with magic powers in order to illustrate our own everyday cruelties.

[amaebi]

Oh G-d yes.

[labelleizzy]

This is a beautifully told story that is a story of my early life and most of my dating life. I've shaped myself to fit others' desire on too God damn many occasions. Cut myself back again and again.

Now is better, now is healing, but holy hell what we do to our women and girls.

[cjsmith]

Yep. Teaching a vast group of people that they are unworthy and unlovable is a level of cruelty I can't even find words to describe.

[labelleizzy]

And since the point of those lessons is to facilitate manipulation and control, often for sexual reasons, ...if I actually sit with that understanding for very long I have such rage that I can't function. Probably part of my depression, tbqh.

[cjsmith]

I know that mental health professionals make a distinction between - I’m not going to phrase this right - emotion for reasons that make sense, and emotion that doesn’t seem to have a “good cause”. Despair as part of grief after losing a loved one, versus just despair all the time, for example.

What I don’t understand is how any woman can be NOT depressed ever. I mean. Note how the phrasing in the first paragraph glosses over in whose opinion the cause appears to be “sufficient”. Our culture is so steeped in misogyny that we don’t recognize “being a woman in a society that systematically and cruelly destroys women for male pleasure and convenience” as a perfectly, completely, 100% valid reason for not being all that happy.

[lcohen]

there is a post being shared on FB pulled from AITA on reddit about a woman whose husband doesn't like her to read because then she is not available to converse with (read: pay attention to) him whenever he desires so she's read, i forget, maybe 3 books in 5 years. i didn't sing with a choral group for the 14 years of my first marriage because my wife didn't take my singing seriously. this story is everywhere, without the feathers.

[cjsmith]

EXACTLY. That’s the point that the writer of the linked article is making, I suspect it’s why the story shows up in folklore, and it’s why I wanted to link it here. It’s mind-bogglingly, enragingly pervasive.

[zahraa]

Applies to so much more than just gender, even.

[cjsmith]

It does! Humanity is just so… not humane, in some ways. Some large ways.

And yet there are individual people who are kind and thoughtful.

[zahraa]

I think most people are kind and thoughtful to people they care about.

[cjsmith]

I am inclined to think so too, which simultaneously speaks very well of humanity (we try! we can consider others’ happiness on a regular basis!) and not so well of us (look at the world we have made, and that’s when we have the capacity to care!). Ah, people! :)

[zahraa]

Yeah.

[wordweaverlynn]

A horrific reminder of what my life used to be like.

It feels so good when you stop plucking.

[cjsmith]

I’m so glad you’ve stopped. May every one of us stop. ♥