The Audacity of Authenticity
Why Women Are Fed-Up With Right-Leaning Men
It struck a chord within me, when I happened across an article by
entitled: “Liberal Women Should Not Marry Republican Men”. That was in response to Washington Post’s recent editorial “If Attitudes Don’t Shift, a Political Dating Mismatch Will Threaten Marriage”. Looking at it from the vantage point of my small farm in western Maine, I know exactly why women are fed up with right-leaning, conservative men.Chapter 1
The Marriage Dilemma
The Posts’ piece talks about the “marriage dilemma” facing America─the divide between white liberal women and republican men that is resulting is a decline in the institution of marriage in our country. Stating that “compromise” will need to be made by “someone” if the statistics are to change. Lyz’s rebuttal is poignant and she’s not wrong when she says:
“What women risk by being partnered with men who don’t share our political beliefs is more than just uncomfortable family dinners. We risk our lives.”
It’s about the values and morals held by the right. So long as those men continue to believe their needs supersede that of their female counterparts, the impasse will remain. As women, it’s a risk on many levels to put ourselves into the hands of those kinds of men. Yet, this superiority complex, while more prevalent among the male population, is not exclusive to their species.
While that attitude is certainly more prevalent among right-leaning men clinging to an old-world mentality, it can be found in other places, too. Among the wealthy elite, for example, toward the lower class. The beautiful toward the ugly. Fit vs. fat. It’s there in our politicians toward the masses, too─in the way they twist law to suit themselves.
It comes down to one thing and one thing only─and that is: the audacity of authenticity amid mainstream society.
Chapter 2
Backstory: Pre-Conditioning
The acrid stench of soot and creosote that stung my nose is one of my earliest childhood memories. There had been a fire at home and my mother had come to collect me from school. She was disheveled, with sooty smudges on her face and clothing. My classmates and I crowded the door of the 3rd grade classroom to hear the story and the rank odor enveloped us. I don’t remember what was said that day in the exchange between my teacher and my mother, but I’ll never forget that smell.
She was a serial arsonist…my mother. Mary Hoskins of North Anson, Maine.
Go ahead─look it up. I did.
You’ll find a couple articles about a home she intentionally set fire to. Try as I might, I could not find any articles about the other homes my mother torched. To my knowledge there were 7 over the course of her lifetime. She died in jail. Alone. We were estranged by then. Our relationship non-existent.
In all the years I’ve written my farm-blog at runamukacres.com, I’ve never shared my backstory. In fact, I scarcely talk about my past at all. However, that traumatic upbringing set the stage for everything I would do and become. The underlying motivation for everything I’ve accomplished thus far in my 43 years of life.
Chapter 3
Backstory: Tolerance for Bullshit
It must have been some form of undiagnosed psychosis that made her that way, but I really can’t say. There was something truly evil about my mother─something akin to the eerie looming paranormal forces from a Stephen King novel. Manipulative and deceitful. Controlling and abusive. There was hell to pay when she didn’t get her way.
Growing up, we became accustomed the abuse. We were spanked with belts, wooden spoons, plastic spatulas, switches─whatever she could get her hands on when she was pissed. I can’t count the number of times she slapped me across the face or hauled me by my hair. As the oldest of 3, she criticized, belittled, condemned and tormented me most of all. How dare you think or want for yourself?
This has been a familiar theme in my life…to some degree or another…
It came up in conversation recently─domestic abuse. I listened as one man voiced his amazement for all the women who stay in abusive situations. Patiently, I explained, “When you’re accustomed to being treated poorly, you have a greater tolerance for bullshit.”
Having lived it, I know it’s true.
You learn that there are always consequences for speaking your mind. You learn to keep your mouth shut and your head down. As a safety measure, you shrink yourself into a form that’s more palatable to those around you. Maybe, like me, you begin people-pleasing for survival. It’s safer for you, if you can keep them happy.
Thinking to escape my mother’s control and abuse, I married my high school sweetheart at 19. Too late, I discovered he was no Prince Charming come to save me from the wicked witch. In fact, I’d inadvertently condemned myself to a life of isolation and domestic servitude.
24 years later my therapist tells me we are predisposed to choose partners that perpetuate the environments we’re accustomed to. We feel comfortable there. That’s why it’s important to do the work of healing and growing as a person so that we can break those generational curses and learn to pick (and be) better partners.
Well, damn…
Chapter 4
Backstory: How dare you?
For 15 years I remained in a marriage with an abusive alcoholic where I was not viewed as an equal partner─or a person, even. My eccentricities were ridiculed. My enthusiasm for for life and thirst for continual learning and growth condemned. His needs and wants came before everything and everyone else in the house. If I dared speak up, voice an opinion he didn’t like or attempt to change the status quo, he would become physically violent.
How dare you think or want for yourself?
After the birth of my first son, we decided that I would stay home and the subversion deepened. With that same old-school mentality, all of the domestic duties: the childcare, the cooking and cleaning─even his sexual needs─became my responsibility. A very jealous and possessive man, he restricted where I could go and who I could see. This meant I had very little support as a young mother. Still, I had a life surrounded by Maine’s wilderness, which was a soothing balm to my wounded soul.
It was a rough season in my life, for sure, but living among the trees and wilderness was my consolation. I spent my days wandering old logging trails through the forest covered hillside where we lived. Towing one toddler in a fat-tired wagon while the other ran ahead of me. The family dog, and even the cat trailing ahead or behind. We had picnics on the hilltop, splashed in the spring run-off streams, watched the birds and played in the mud. I kept my first garden there and brought home my first chickens.
Being able to stay home and raise my babies, practice those homesteading skills and indulge that connection to the land was my consolation for such a miserable marriage. For a long time that was enough. I was accustomed to being treated poorly, afterall…I grew up that way.
Chapter 5
Backstory: Life Is Short.
The day my dear, sweet Daddy died changed my life forever. He was just 55.
Dana Walter Richards was the kindest soul you could have known, a family man through and through. He had the misfortune of becoming acquainted with my mother at 18, resulting in an unplanned pregnancy (me). Honest and true, if not rather conservative in his ideals, my father did “the Right Thing” and married the girl. Unwittingly forfeiting his own life in doing so.
For his part, I think my father truly loved my mother and was content to spend his life providing for his family. He loved his children dearly. My mother, however, was never content with her lot and ran the poor man into the ground. I can only imagine how she must have berated my sweet father into helping with those house-fires.
She divorced him twice, withheld his children from him for 5 years, and took him to court for every penny he had. At one point, he was living in his car because he couldn’t afford a place to stay after all the child support the state took from his paychecks. She even went so far as to brutalize his car with a baseball bat, and on more than one occasion attempted to run the man over.
He died a broken and depressed.
Yet, Daddy’s parting gift to me was a profound lesson: Life. Is. Short.
Life is too short to waste it in an unhappy marriage. Too short to spend it with people who don’t value you. And way too short to miss out on living your truest life, or being your authentic self.
Within 2 months of Daddy’s passing, I’d waken to the realization that I could no longer remain in that marriage. It wasn’t long after when, in January of 2015, I did one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do… I walked away from the home and life I’d created to start again.
Chapter 6
Backstory: Mr. Kryptonite
It takes a long time to heal from a lifetime of trauma. 5 years and 2 boyfriends later, I was just beginning to awaken to my own power when I met “Mr. Kryptonite”. My first real love…
I fell hard for this man and his charming, in not right-leaning ways. We prided ourselves that our relationship was strong enough to cross the political divide. My love for him became my greatest weakness. Because I loved him so much, I would have done almost anything for his love and acceptance─even sacrifice my beloved farm.
I loved this man so much I was willing to give up my voice in the relationship to be with him. I was willing to shrink myself into a more tolerable form so that I wouldn’t “make waves” with his children, his 83yo republican father, or the rest of his Trump-loving family. I fell back into the old habit of people-pleasing to gain their love and approval, and that sacrifice was taken advantage of.
Sigh…we perpetuate the conditions we are accustomed to, right?
I spent more than 3 years tormenting myself, desperately trying to make it work, before I finally called “Uncle” on that relationship. Gradually, the wound became too raw. Too sore. It became too painful to be seen as a lesser person. Too painful holding myself in for the sake of those around me, especially when those people neither valued nor cared enough for the sacrifice.
That’s what it’s like for women like me to be involved with right-leaning men. conservatives. republicans. and Trump-supporters. This is what the Washington Post is asking women to endure so that those men can continue to feel superior. A denial of our essential selves. A sacrifice of basic soulful rights. In some cases─our very existence.
I left that relationship with the clear and certain notion that I was never going back into that box─ever. Never again would I shrink myself or sacrifice my own needs to the benefit of those who do not value what I bring to the table. Never again would I allow my voice to be silenced. And never again will I tolerate such blatant disrespect from people who claim to love me.
Sometimes, deciding who you are is deciding who you are never going to be again…
Chapter 7
An Obsolete Mentality
It’s an old-world, patriarchal mentality they cling to. One that was never right to begin with and has long since become obsolete. We shouldn’t have to remind one another that it’s not morally right to suppress another soul’s existence. It’s just not.
When you stop and think about it, it’s almost mindblowing that this is even an issue in our “modern society”. As young as 1 and 2, we are taught it’s not okay to hit, a recurring message as we grow to adulthood. Yet, too many men think it’s okay to assert dominance over their partner in one way or another. Women shouldn’t have to tell you that’s not okay!
Schoolyard etiquette teaches us early in life that no one wants to play with a dictator─someone who seeks to dictate the rules of the game for their own advantage. No one wants to play with someone who wants to control or manipulate them. And everyone wants their voice to be heard.
In adolescence and later in the work place, we learn that no one wants to be the beast of burden. No one wants to do more than their fair share of the work. Everyone has to pitch in and do their part for the group or workplace to be collectively content. It’s the same at home─leastwise, it should be…
When women dare to speak up─when they have the audacity to advocate for themselves─these men revert to the equivalent of a 5yo having a temper tantrum to get his way. How dare you think and want for yourself?
Chapter 8
I Dare
In spite of the pain and traumas, I’m exceedingly grateful for my turbulent past. The suffering I endured drove me to seek solace in nature, even as a young child. There I found healing and acceptance, forging a connection to nature which has become the basis for everything I am today.
If I had never had those experiences, I doubt I’d have followed this path into farming. I definitely would never have bought my own farm. No, I would not be the person I am today without my traumatic past, and I really like who I am today.
So here you find me. In this transitionary phase of my life in which I am growing exponentially as a person, with the audacity to be wholly and unapologetically myself.
Yes. I dare to think and want for myself. Because I am just as worthy as the next guy. Or gal.
Chapter 9
What’s Next: Re-Centering
Following my breakup earlier this year, I’ve made some changes in my life─a re-centering of priorities, if you will. I gave up the weekly bake-a-thons I had been doing, because I’m happier outside. I’ve nixed the farm’s CSA program altogether, choosing to prioritize my conservation efforts instead. Most importantly, I’m bringing my writing career off the back burner where it has simmered for so long.
Until a few weeks ago I’d never heard of Substack. It didn’t enter my realm until one of my favorite authors announced that she was moving her blog here. When I followed Jenna Woginrich, who writes “Cold Antler Farm”, I became obsessed with the platform. I love the freedom of expression it allows writers. That sense of creative liberty resonates with my own burning need for authenticity in this season of my life.
Even as I’ve put the farm first all this time, becoming a legitimate writer has been an important life-goal for me. I’ve kept that ambition alive through Runamuk’s farm-blog, writing as Farmer Sam or Mrs. Runamuk─literally married to my business.
In many ways, I am the farm and the farm is me. Now, however, I have decided it’s time to step from behind the proverbial curtain to launch this Substack─not as Mrs. Runamuk the lady-farmer─but as Samantha Burns: the Writer.
For me, Sparkling Audacity is an investment in that writing career. More importantly, though, Substack is allowing me to cultivate the authenticity I’ve so long been denied─both by the people in my lives and by society as a whole.
Let’s face it, a solo lady-farmer/tree-hugging activist who lives and dies by the love and compassion she exudes is a fairly unusual character in our society. But then, “fitting in” has never been my strong suit.
Chapter 10
Women are Fed-Up
Getting back to the debate between the Washington Post and
at Men Yell At Me, the bald truth of the matter is that women are downright fed up with men and their bullying. That’s why we’re not interested in partnering with men who possess those old-world mentalities supported by the right. We’re fed up and we don’t wanna play anymore.Dear Gentlemen of the Washington Post:
After 43 years spent living a shrunken existence, I am done. Like so many other women, I am fed-up with the attitude, the disrespect and the abuse. I staunchly refuse to ever go back inside the box I’d crammed myself into for want of love. Never again, will I sit at a table where I am not valued. No one should have to shrink themselves to be loved and respected. Not in this day and age.
And that, gentlemen, is the heart of the matter.
We’re fed-up with not having a voice or a vote. Fed-up with being treated as lesser individuals. Fed-up with having to fight for the smallest of considerations. And fed-up with carrying the burden of humanity on our shoulders. Women are so worn out and emotionally raw from trying to do and be everything for so long, that we’re just─done.
Women are waking to the value of what they bring to the table. We’re stronger now, willing to stand on our own for want of respect. If men will not pull their weight, we may as well do the job on our own. If men will not treat us properly, as equals with the right to self-autonomy and self-expression without fear of repercussion, then we’re content to sit at that table alone and we’ll still have a damn good time.
Chapter 11
The Audacity to Ask For More
In all of these relationships─with my mother, my ex-husband, Mr. Kryptonite─when I finally realized no one was coming to save me and began advocating for myself, it was ALWAYS met with defensiveness and anger. As though I were Oliver Twist with the audacity to ask for more.
Just asking for the conversation was an affront to their sensibilities. Let alone asking for meaningful change or compromise. “Let’s find a way forward. Together. In a mutually beneficial way.” It seems fair, but is received with scorn and condemnation.
When I realized that Mr. Kryptonite couldn’t even hear how my lack of voice in our relationship was hurting me─hurting “us”─I knew there was nothing I could do to make that situation work. My needs, desires and feelings were not his concern. In his mind, his needs were superior because he was superior. No amount of sacrifice on my part was ever going to change that.
Chapter 12
A Two-Way Street
The Post’s article indicates:
“This mismatch means that someone will need to compromise.”
To which Lyz points out:
“The use of the word “someone” here is particularly nefarious, because it’s not just “someone” being asked to compromise. It’s women.”
And she’s not wrong, guys. Here’s the thing…
Compromise only works if both parties are willing to give a little. It’s a two-way street. That’s how negotiations work and relationships are much the same.
Men who possess that old-school mentality and superiority complex are either incapable or unwilling of conceding anything. This leaves women, who now know their own worth, little choice but to walk away from the bargaining table.
Chapter 13
I *AM* Worthy
Life is short, remember? Our time here is precious and we should make the most of it. As humans─as souls on this plane of existence─we should be living our lives fully and to the best of our ability. That means experiencing what our world has to offer, discovering our purpose and doing that with pride and joy. Most of all, it means being our truest, most authentic selves and not being shrunken by peer pressure or societal constraints.
I believe that every living soul on this planet─be they human, animal, plant, insect or microbe─is worthy of that existence. It’s taken me a lifetime to realize that I am worthy of that existence, too.
That’s why, until a man who values me properly comes into my life, I’ll remain single as I explore the depths of my own authentic self. I want to know, who is Samantha Burns really? When she is not being oppressed by her mother, her husband or her boyfriend? Who is Samantha Burns when she casts off the shackles of society’s attitude toward authenticity?
There’s been a lot of talk about authenticity in more recent years, still something of a newer modern concept foreign to older generations. Shrinking oneself is just part of life─especially for women. It’s culturally expected for the individual to undergo some degree of conformity and assimilation to be a part of the community as a whole.
Authenticity, living in the moment, taking pleasure in the mundane of the ordinary day─most people don’t really know what that looks like and instinctively fear that which is strange to them. Or they become angry and resentful because you’ve done something they never could.
Chapter 14
I Will *BE* Audacious
My authentic self is too much for some people and it’s taken me years to realize that’s totally okay. Perhaps because I live in an extremely rural part of western Maine where we don’t see as much cultural diversity, I feel the sting of those attitudes more than someone who is practicing authenticity in, say─Boston or New York City. None of that matters to me anymore, though, because I’m determined to be me anyway.
If it is considered audacious to advocate for myself─to expect respect at the very least, let alone kindness and consideration─then I will be audacious.
If it is audacious to expect not to be assaulted─even when my voice contradicts your own sensibilities─then I will be audacious.
If it is audacious even just to be myself─then I’m going to sparkle with audacity like a freakn’ disco ball, baby!!!
I think that’s where women are at these days. We’re all just fed-up─and that’s exactly what Sparkling Audacity is all about. It’s about having the audacity to be true to yourself even in the face of criticism.
Wow! You are very strong and admirable, an inspiration.