I’ve been reading more, writing less, in hopes of bettering myself. in this time, I’ve familiarized myself with beautiful writing, with the muddy and the complex thoughts of my peers but why, so often in the writing I consume, do I read of women confessing their cannibalistic nature? it’s not rare to find, halfway through an essay, a woman referencing an internal feeling of cannibalism, or literally stating that it is in the nature of women to be cannibals. I rarely read of men categorizing themselves this way, at least that I have seen, and if I do it is in a more serious, physical way. Dahmer type references. this, at least, would be the technically correct way to use cannibalism, as a cannibal is defined as “a person who eats the flesh of other human beings”, or “an animal that feeds on flesh of its own species.” however, there are two ways cannibalism has been used in the predominantly women’s writing I’ve read. the first way cannibalism has been used is not the usual definition but instead is a violence towards the self, and the other is the accurate definition of violence towards others.
I suppose I can easily follow the footsteps in the dirt back to where this comes from, this feeling of destruction towards the self. it’s not remarkable to point out that for most of our known history, women have had to suppress whatever was decidedly un-womanly, compress what did come naturally, and digest trauma without regurgitating. it’s breathing without enough breath to be a woman like that. it’s a world tightening the strings of the corsets, and women coughing up their passive, unruffled thanks. choking on their agreeableness.
this theme throughout the writing I have seen tends to be self-inflicted. it’s the cannibalism of the self. it’s the serpent eating it’s own tail but, instead of the eternal cycle of destruction and rebirth, like the myth of the ouroboros, cannibalism’s destruction of the self is destruction without rebirth. it is slow death. shaving and shaping the self until the curves are smaller, until the spikes are dull, until the taste of your own blood equates to the taste of approval and both are horribly addictive.
I am all for the connection of cannibalism to the self discovery, the melancholy, the grief women feel when they realize the extent of potential and the trueness they allowed cut out of themselves. it is a moment of clarity when we realize that we did not just hold the hand that held the knife, but we were the knife itself. yes, yes cut me. in fact, why didn’t I cut myself sooner? I’ve been suffering all this time, why not suffer more for the sake of some sort of prize. i plunge myself into my skin, the sharp metal of my subconscious skewering that which is natural to me. I destroy until I disappear.
true cannibalism, though, is not a self-inflicted crime. it is a crime against others, a destruction of those that are most similar to you, of those you supposedly should be guarding the most, should be cherishing the most, because they understand your position. it is, once again, unremarkable and common and unmonumental to point out the cannibalistic nature of women towards other women. this historically common cannibalistic pattern is equatable to the concept of the crab barrel system, which “refers to a common occurrence in buckets of crabs: if one crab attempts to escape from a bucket of live crabs, the other crabs will pull it back down, rather than allowing it to get free. Often, the crabs will wait until the brave crab has almost escaped before pulling it back into the bucket.”1 this is a concept that is used to describe common phenomenon with many oppressed groups, and it usually used to describe the unfair chokehold society puts them through. as it applies to women, we can push one another down, climbing to be free, eating and stepping on one another in the process. hating those who make it out of the bucket. upholding a hierarchy within a hierarchy. it is, however, necessary to remember who placed us in the bucket in the first place. some never realize the bucket exists at all. the quote is that caged birds think flying is an illness, or something like that. Alejandro Jodorowsky.
we are animals that feed on the flesh of our own species. we had been pitted against one another like scarred, bleeding, bruised dogs in a caged pit below the dirt. staring at one another, pleading that we don’t rip the other apart. but the ground shakes with the stomping of the mob, and the screams beg for violence. they beg for, demand, a show. it is not until we pause, until we see ourselves in the eyes of the competition, until we see the blue sky beyond the perverted mob surrounding us, that we see our own destruction. that we learn to become so in love with being a woman and with being around women. our destruction, our fighting, can lead to our rebirth if we let it.
I will read every single essay about the female experience and cannibalism. I will hear each declaration of self hate, each acknowledgement of self destruction, I will eat eat eat. I simply hope we collectively turn to the light past the mob, to the sky above, to the world outside the barrel, to one another, eat the bucket from the inside out, and step outside into the world. roam the earth to eat, graze the fields, rather than eat ourselves and hurt each other. turn from cannibalism. abandon death that leaves no food for soil. if we are to destroy ourselves, at least let us be reborn. women were not born to be cannibals, they were born to be ouroboros.
Reference
ladychaotica21. “Crab Mentality: How Women Hold Each Other Back.” ShoutOut! James Madison University, 22 Mar. 2013, shoutoutjmu.com/2013/03/22/crab-mentality-how-women-hold-each-other-back/.