Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><?xml-model href="http://www.tei-c.org/release/xml/tei/custom/schema/relaxng/tei_all.rng" type="application/xml" schematypens="http://relaxng.org/ns/structure/1.0"?><?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="null"?><TEI xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
	<teiHeader xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0">
		<fileDesc>
			<titleStmt>
				<title>Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying</title>
				<author>Adrienne Rich</author>

<respStmt>
					<persName>Haley Beardsley</persName>
					<resp>Editor, encoder</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Erica Delsandro</persName>
					<resp>Investigator, editor</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Margaret Hunter</persName>
					<resp>Editor</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Diane Jakacki</persName>
					<resp>Invesigator, encoder</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Sophie McQuaide</persName>
					<resp>Editor</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Olivia Martin</persName>
					<resp>Editor, encoder</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Bri Perea</persName>
					<resp>Editor</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Roger Rothman</persName>
					<resp>Investigator, editor</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Kaitlyn Segreti</persName>
					<resp>Editor</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Maggie Smith</persName>
					<resp>Editor</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<respStmt>
					<persName>Maya Wadhwa</persName>
					<resp>Editor</resp>
				</respStmt>
				<funder>Bucknell University Humanities Center</funder>
				<funder>Bucknell University Office of Undergraduate Research</funder>
				<funder>The Mellon Foundation</funder>
				<funder>National Endowment for the Humanities</funder>
			</titleStmt>
			<publicationStmt>
				<distributor>
					<name>Bucknell University</name>
					<address>
						<street>One Dent Drive</street>
						<settlement>Lewisburg</settlement>
						<region>Pennsylvania</region>
						<postCode>17837</postCode>
					</address>
				</distributor>
				<availability>
					<licence>Bucknell Heresies Project: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial
						4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)</licence>
					<licence>Heresies journal: © Heresies Collective</licence>
				</availability>
			</publicationStmt>
			<sourceDesc>
				<biblStruct>
					<analytic>
						<title>Issue 1: Heresies</title>
					</analytic>
					<monogr>
						<imprint>
							<publisher>HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on Art and
								Politics</publisher>
							<pubPlace>
								<address>
									<name>Heresies</name>
									<postBox>P.O. Boxx 766, Canal Street Station</postBox>
									<settlement>New York</settlement>
									<region>New York</region>
									<postCode>10013</postCode>
								</address>
							</pubPlace>
						</imprint>
					</monogr>
				</biblStruct>
			</sourceDesc>
		</fileDesc>
	<xenoData><rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#" xmlns:as="http://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#" xmlns:cwrc="http://sparql.cwrc.ca/ontologies/cwrc#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/" xmlns:geo="http://www.geonames.org/ontology#" xmlns:oa="http://www.w3.org/ns/oa#" xmlns:schema="http://schema.org/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#" xmlns:fabio="https://purl.org/spar/fabio#" xmlns:bf="http://www.openlinksw.com/schemas/bif#" xmlns:cito="https://sparontologies.github.io/cito/current/cito.html#" xmlns:org="http://www.w3.org/ns/org#">
 <rdf:Description rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld/">
 <![CDATA[{
	"@context": {
		"dcterms:created": {
			"@type": "xsd:dateTime",
			"@id": "dcterms:created"
		},
		"dcterms:issued": {
			"@type": "xsd:dateTime",
			"@id": "dcterms:issued"
		},
		"oa:motivatedBy": {
			"@type": "oa:Motivation"
		},
		"@language": "en",
		"rdf": "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#",
		"rdfs": "http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#",
		"as": "http://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#",
		"cwrc": "http://sparql.cwrc.ca/ontologies/cwrc#",
		"dc": "http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/",
		"dcterms": "http://purl.org/dc/terms/",
		"foaf": "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/",
		"geo": "http://www.geonames.org/ontology#",
		"oa": "http://www.w3.org/ns/oa#",
		"schema": "http://schema.org/",
		"xsd": "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#",
		"fabio": "https://purl.org/spar/fabio#",
		"bf": "http://www.openlinksw.com/schemas/bif#",
		"cito": "https://sparontologies.github.io/cito/current/cito.html#",
		"org": "http://www.w3.org/ns/org#"
	},
	"id": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djakacki/heresies/main/issue01/texts/rich.xml?title_annotation_20230409154920876",
	"type": "oa:Annotation",
	"dcterms:created": "2023-04-09T19:49:20.876Z",
	"dcterms:modified": "2023-04-09T19:49:20.876Z",
	"dcterms:creator": {
		"@id": "https://github.com/djakacki",
		"@type": [
			"cwrc:NaturalPerson",
			"schema:Person"
		],
		"cwrc:hasName": "Diane Jakacki"
	},
	"oa:motivatedBy": "oa:identifying",
	"oa:hasTarget": {
		"@id": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djakacki/heresies/main/issue01/texts/rich.xml?title_annotation_20230409154920876#Target",
		"@type": "oa:SpecificResource",
		"oa:hasSource": {
			"@id": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djakacki/heresies/main/issue01/texts/rich.xml",
			"@type": "dctypes:Text",
			"dc:format": "text/xml"
		},
		"oa:renderedVia": {
			"@id": "https://leaf-writer.leaf-vre.org",
			"@type": "as:Application",
			"rdfs:label": "LEAF-Writer",
			"schema:softwareVersion": "2.7.3"
		},
		"oa:hasSelector": {
			"@id": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djakacki/heresies/main/issue01/texts/rich.xml?title_annotation_20230409154920876#Selector",
			"@type": "oa:XPathSelector",
			"rdf:value": "TEI/text/back/p/title"
		}
	},
	"oa:hasBody": {
		"@type": "bf:Title",
		"@id": "http://viaf.org/viaf/9718159521652133070000/",
		"dc:format": "text/plain"
	},
	"as:generator": {
		"@id": "https://leaf-writer.leaf-vre.org",
		"@type": "as:Application",
		"rdfs:label": "LEAF-Writer",
		"schema:url": "https://leaf-writer.lincsproject.ca/",
		"schema:softwareVersion": "2.7.3"
	}
}]]>
 </rdf:Description>
 
 <rdf:Description rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld/">
 <![CDATA[{
	"@context": {
		"dcterms:created": {
			"@type": "xsd:dateTime",
			"@id": "dcterms:created"
		},
		"dcterms:issued": {
			"@type": "xsd:dateTime",
			"@id": "dcterms:issued"
		},
		"oa:motivatedBy": {
			"@type": "oa:Motivation"
		},
		"@language": "en",
		"rdf": "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#",
		"rdfs": "http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#",
		"as": "http://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#",
		"cwrc": "http://sparql.cwrc.ca/ontologies/cwrc#",
		"dc": "http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/",
		"dcterms": "http://purl.org/dc/terms/",
		"foaf": "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/",
		"geo": "http://www.geonames.org/ontology#",
		"oa": "http://www.w3.org/ns/oa#",
		"schema": "http://schema.org/",
		"xsd": "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#",
		"fabio": "https://purl.org/spar/fabio#",
		"bf": "http://www.openlinksw.com/schemas/bif#",
		"cito": "https://sparontologies.github.io/cito/current/cito.html#",
		"org": "http://www.w3.org/ns/org#"
	},
	"id": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djakacki/heresies/main/issue01/texts/rich.xml?rs_annotation_20230409155806627",
	"type": "oa:Annotation",
	"dcterms:created": "2023-04-09T19:58:06.627Z",
	"dcterms:modified": "2023-04-09T19:58:06.627Z",
	"dcterms:creator": {
		"@id": "https://github.com/djakacki",
		"@type": [
			"cwrc:NaturalPerson",
			"schema:Person"
		],
		"cwrc:hasName": "Diane Jakacki"
	},
	"oa:motivatedBy": "oa:identifying",
	"oa:hasTarget": {
		"@id": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djakacki/heresies/main/issue01/texts/rich.xml?rs_annotation_20230409155806627#Target",
		"@type": "oa:SpecificResource",
		"oa:hasSource": {
			"@id": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djakacki/heresies/main/issue01/texts/rich.xml",
			"@type": "dctypes:Text",
			"dc:format": "text/xml"
		},
		"oa:renderedVia": {
			"@id": "https://leaf-writer.leaf-vre.org",
			"@type": "as:Application",
			"rdfs:label": "LEAF-Writer",
			"schema:softwareVersion": "2.7.3"
		},
		"oa:hasSelector": {
			"@id": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djakacki/heresies/main/issue01/texts/rich.xml?rs_annotation_20230409155806627#Selector",
			"@type": "oa:XPathSelector",
			"rdf:value": "TEI/text/body/div[2]/p[68]/rs"
		}
	},
	"oa:hasBody": {
		"@type": "owl:Thing",
		"@id": "http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q7264",
		"dc:format": "text/plain"
	},
	"as:generator": {
		"@id": "https://leaf-writer.leaf-vre.org",
		"@type": "as:Application",
		"rdfs:label": "LEAF-Writer",
		"schema:url": "https://leaf-writer.lincsproject.ca/",
		"schema:softwareVersion": "2.7.3"
	}
}]]>
 </rdf:Description>
 
 <rdf:Description rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld/">
 <![CDATA[{
	"@context": {
		"dcterms:created": {
			"@type": "xsd:dateTime",
			"@id": "dcterms:created"
		},
		"dcterms:issued": {
			"@type": "xsd:dateTime",
			"@id": "dcterms:issued"
		},
		"oa:motivatedBy": {
			"@type": "oa:Motivation"
		},
		"@language": "en",
		"rdf": "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#",
		"rdfs": "http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#",
		"as": "http://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#",
		"cwrc": "http://sparql.cwrc.ca/ontologies/cwrc#",
		"dc": "http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/",
		"dcterms": "http://purl.org/dc/terms/",
		"foaf": "http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/",
		"geo": "http://www.geonames.org/ontology#",
		"oa": "http://www.w3.org/ns/oa#",
		"schema": "http://schema.org/",
		"xsd": "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#",
		"fabio": "https://purl.org/spar/fabio#",
		"bf": "http://www.openlinksw.com/schemas/bif#",
		"cito": "https://sparontologies.github.io/cito/current/cito.html#",
		"org": "http://www.w3.org/ns/org#"
	},
	"id": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djakacki/heresies/main/issue01/texts/rich.xml?person_annotation_20230409155928346",
	"type": "oa:Annotation",
	"dcterms:created": "2023-04-09T19:59:28.346Z",
	"dcterms:modified": "2023-04-09T19:59:28.346Z",
	"dcterms:creator": {
		"@id": "https://github.com/djakacki",
		"@type": [
			"cwrc:NaturalPerson",
			"schema:Person"
		],
		"cwrc:hasName": "Diane Jakacki"
	},
	"oa:motivatedBy": "oa:identifying",
	"oa:hasTarget": {
		"@id": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djakacki/heresies/main/issue01/texts/rich.xml?person_annotation_20230409155928346#Target",
		"@type": "oa:SpecificResource",
		"oa:hasSource": {
			"@id": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djakacki/heresies/main/issue01/texts/rich.xml",
			"@type": "dctypes:Text",
			"dc:format": "text/xml"
		},
		"oa:renderedVia": {
			"@id": "https://leaf-writer.leaf-vre.org",
			"@type": "as:Application",
			"rdfs:label": "LEAF-Writer",
			"schema:softwareVersion": "2.7.3"
		},
		"oa:hasSelector": {
			"@id": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djakacki/heresies/main/issue01/texts/rich.xml?person_annotation_20230409155928346#Selector",
			"@type": "oa:XPathSelector",
			"rdf:value": "TEI/text/body/div/byline/persName/persName"
		}
	},
	"oa:hasBody": {
		"@type": "cwrc:NaturalPerson",
		"@id": "http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q270705",
		"dc:format": "text/plain"
	},
	"as:generator": {
		"@id": "https://leaf-writer.leaf-vre.org",
		"@type": "as:Application",
		"rdfs:label": "LEAF-Writer",
		"schema:url": "https://leaf-writer.lincsproject.ca/",
		"schema:softwareVersion": "2.7.3"
	}
}]]>
 </rdf:Description>
 </rdf:RDF></xenoData></teiHeader>
	<text>
		<body>
			<pb facs="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BucknellDSC/heresies/main/issue01/images/01_025.jpg"/>

<div><head><title>Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying</title></head>
			<byline><persName><persName key="Adrienne Rich" ref="http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q270705">Adrienne Rich</persName></persName></byline></div>

<div>(These notes are concerned with relationships between and among women. When "personal
				relationship" is referred to I mean a relationship between two women, it will be
				clear in what follows when I am talking about women's relationships with men.)
			The old, male idea of honor. A man’s “word" sufficed—to other men—without
				guarantee.
			"Our Land Free, Our Men Honest, Our Women Fruitful"—a popular colonial toast in
				America.
			Male honor also having something to do with killing: I couid not love thee, Dear, so
				much / Lov'd I not Honour more (“To Lucasta, On Going to the Wars”). Male honor as
				something needing to be avenged: hence, the duel.
			Women’s honor, something altogether else: virginity, chastity, fidelity to a husband.
				Honesty in women has not been considered important, We have been depicted as
				generically whimsical, deceitful, subtle, vacillating. And we have been rewarded for
				lying.
			Men have been expected to tell the truth about facts, not about feelings. They have
				not been expected to talk about feelings at all.
			Yet even about facts they have continually lied. We assume that politicians are
				without honor. We read their statements trying to crack the code. The scandals of
				their politics: not that men in high places lie, only that they do so with Such
				indifference, so endlessly, still expecting to be believed. We are accustomed to the
				contempt inherent in the political lie.
			
			To discover that one has been lied to in a personal relationship, however, leads one
				to feel a little crazy.
			
			Lying is done with words, and also with silence.
			The woman who tells lies in her personal relationships may or may not plan or invent
				her lying. She may not even think of what she is doing in a calculated way.
			 A subject is raised which the liar wishes buried. She has to go downstairs, her
				parking-meter will have run out. Or there is a telephone call she ought to have made
				an hour ago.
			She is asked, point-blank, a question which may lead into painful talk: “How do you
				feel about what is happening between us?” Instead of trying to describe her feelings
				in their ambiguity and confusion, she asks “How do you feel?" The other, because she
				is trying to establish a ground of openness and trust, begins describing her own
				feelings. Thus the liar learns more than she tells.
			And she may also tell herself a lie: that she is concerned with the other’s feelings,
				not with her own.
			But the liar is concerned with her own feelings.
			The liar lives in fear of losing control. She cannot even desire a relationship
				without manipulation, since to be vulnerable to another person means for her the
				loss of control.
			The liar has many friends, and leads an existence of great loneliness.
			
			The liar often suffers from amnesia. Amnesia is the silence of the unconscious.
			To lie habitually, as a way of life, is to lose contact with the unconscious. it is
				like taking sleeping pills, which confer sleep but blot out dreaming. The
				unconscious wants truth. It ceases to speak to those who want something else more
				than truth.
			In speaking of lies we come inevitably to the subject of truth. There is nothing
				simple or easy about this idea. There is no “the truth,” "a truth"—truth is not
				one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. The pattern of the
				carpet is a surface. When we look closely or when we become weavers, we learn of the
				tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of
				the carpet.
			This is why the effort to speak honestly is so important, Lies are usually attempts
				to make <pb facs="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BucknellDSC/heresies/main/issue01/images/01_026.jpg"/> everything simpler—for the liar—than it really is, or ought
				to be.
			In lying to others we end up lying to ourselves. We deny the importance of an event,
				or a person, and thus deprive ourselves of a part of our lives. Or we use one piece
				of the past or present to screen out another. Thus we lose faith even with our own
				lives.
			The unconscious wants truth, as the body does. The complexity and fecundity of dreams
				come from the complexity and fecundity of the unconscious struggling to fulfill that
				desire. The complexity and fecundity of poetry come from the same struggle.
			
			An honorabie human relationship—that is, one in which two people have the right to
				use the word "love”—is a process, delicate, violent often terrifying to both
				persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.
			It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and
				isolation.
			It is important to do this because in so doing we do justice to our own
				complexity.
			It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way
				with us.
			
			I come back to the question of women’s honor. Truthfuiness has not been considered
				important for women, as long as we have remained physically faithful to a man, or
				chaste.
			We have been expected to lie with our bodies: to bleach, redden, unkink or curl our
				hair, pluck eyebrows, shave armpits, wear padding in various places or lace
				ourselves, take little steps, glaze finger and toe nails, wear clothes that
				emphasize our helplessness.
			We have been required to tell different lies at different times, depending on what
				the men of the time needed to hear. The Victorian wife or the white southern lady,
				who were expected to have no sensuality, to "lie still"; the twentieth-century
				“free" woman who is expected to fake orgasms.
			We have had the truth of our bodies withheld from us or distorted; we have been kept
				in ignorance of our most intimate places. Our instincts have been punished:
				clitorectomies for "lustful” nuns or for "difficult" wives. it has been difficult,
				too, to know the lies of our complicity from the lies we believed.
			 The lie of the "happy marriage," of domesticity — we have been complicit, have acted
				out the fiction of a weil-lived life, until the day we testify in court of rapes,
				beatings, psychic cruelties, public and private humiliations.
			Patriarchal lying has manipulated women both through fafsehood and through silence.
				Facts we needed have been withheld from us. False witness has been borne against
				us.
			And so we must take seriously the question of truthfulness between women,
				truthfulness among women. As we cease to lie with our bodies, as we cease to take on
				faith what men have said about us, is a truly womanly idea of honor in the
				making?
			
			Women have been forced to lie, for survival, to men. How to unlearn this among other
				women?
			"Women have always lied to each other." "Women have always whispered the truth to
				each other.” Both of these axioms are true.
			"Women have always been divided against each other." “Women have afways been in
				secret collusion." Both of these axioms are true.
			In the struggle for survival we tell lies. To bosses, to prison guards, the police,
				men who have power over us who legally own us and our children, lovers who need us
				as proof of their manhood.
			There is a danger run by all powerless people that we forget we are lying, or that
				lying becomes a weapon we carry over into relationships with people who do not have
				power over us.
			
			I want to reiterate that when we talk about women and honor or women and lying, we
				speak within the context of male lying, the lies of the powerful, the lie as a false
				source of power.
			Women have to think whether we want, in our relationships with each other, the kind
				of power that can be obtained through lying.
			Women have been driven mad, “gaslighted," for centuries by the refutation of our
				experience and our instincts in a culture which validates only male experience. The
				truth of our bodies and our minds has been mystified to us. We therefore have a
				primary obligation to each other: not to undermine each other’s sense of <pb facs="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BucknellDSC/heresies/main/issue01/images/01_027.jpg"/> reality for the sake of expediency; not to gaslight each other.
			
			Women have often felt insane when cleaving to the truth of our experience. Our future
				depends on the sanity of each of us and we have a profound stake beyond the personal
				in the project of describing our reality as candidly and fully as we can to each
				other.
			There are phrases which help us not to admit we are lying: "my privacy,“ "nobody’s
				business but my own.” The choices that underlie these phrases may indeed be
				justified; but we ought to think about the full meaning and consequences of such
				language.
			Women’s love for women has been represented almost entirely through silence and lies.
				The institution of heterosexuality has forced the lesbian to dissemble, or be
				labelled a pervert, a criminal, a sick or dangerous woman, etc., etc. The lesbian,
				then has often been forced to lie, like the prostitute or the married woman.
			Does a life "in the closet” — lying, perhaps of necessity, about ourselves to bosses,
				landlords, clients, colleagues, family, because the law and public opinion are
				founded on a lie — does this, can it, spread into public life, so that lying
				(described as discretion) becomes an easy way to avoid conflict or complication? Can
				it be- come a strategy so ingrained that it is used even with close friends and
				lovers?
			Heterosexuality as an institution has also drowned in silence the erotic feelings
				between women. I myself lived half a lifetime in the lie of that denial. That
				silence makes us all to some degree, into liars.
			When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around
				her.
			
			The liar leads an existence of unutterable loneliness.
			The liar is afraid.
			But we are all afraid: without fear we become manic, hubristic, self-destructive.
				What is this particular fear that possesses the liar?
			She is afraid that her own truths are not good enough.
			She is afraid, not so much of prison guards or bosses, but of something unnamed
				within her.
			The liar fears the void.
			 The void is not something created by patriarchy, or racism, or capitalism. It will
				not fade away with any of them. It is part of every woman.
			“The dark core,” Virginia Woolf named it, writing of her mother. The dark core. It is
				beyond personality; beyond who loves us or hates us. We begin out of the void, out
				of darkness and emptiness. It is part of the cycle understood by the old pagan
				religions that materialism denies. Out of death, rebirth; out of nothing,
				something.
			The void is the creatrix, the matrix. It is not mere hollowness and anarchy. But in
				women it has been identified with lovelessness, barrenness, sterility. We have been
				urged to fill our "emptiness" with children. We are not supposed to go down into the
				darkness of the core.
			Yet, if we can risk it, the something born of that nothing is the beginning of our
				truth.
			The liar in her terror wants to fill up the void with anything. Her lies are a denial
				of her fear; a way of maintaining control.
			
			Why do we feel slightly crazy when we realize we have been lied to in a
				relationship?
			We take so much of the universe on trust. You tell me: "In 1950 I lived on the north
				side of Beacon Street in Somerville.“ You tell me: “She and I were lovers, but for
				months now we have only been good friends.” You teil me: "It is seventy degrees
				outside and the sun is shining." Because l love you, because there is not even a
				question of lying between us, I take these accounts of the universe on trust: your
				address twenty-five years ago your relationship with someone I know only by sight,
				this morning's weather. I fling unconscious tendrils of belief, like slender green
				threads, across statements such as these, statements made so unequivocally, which
				have no tone or shadow of tentativeness. I build them into the mosaic of my worid. I
				allow my universe to change in minute, significant ways, on the basis of things you
				have said to me, of my trust in you.
			I also have faith that you are teiling me things it is important I should know; that
				you do not conceal facts from me in an effort to spare me, or yourself, pain.
			Or, at the very least, that you wili say, “There are things l am not telling
				you."
				When we discover that someone we trusted can <pb facs="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BucknellDSC/heresies/main/issue01/images/01_028.jpg"/> be trusted no longer it
				forces us to re-examine the universe, to question the whole instinct and concept of
				trust. For awhile, we are thrust back onto some bleak, jutting ledge, in a dark
				pierced by sheets of fire, swept by sheets of rain in a world before kinship, or
				naming, or tenderness exist; we are brought close to formlessness.
			
			The liar may resist confrontation, denying that she lied. Or she may use other
				language: forgetfulness privacy, the protection of someone else. Or she may bravely
				declare herself a coward. This allows her to go on lying, since that is what cowards
				do. She does not say, I was afraid, since this would open the question of other ways
				of handling her fear. It wouid open the question of what is actually feared.
			She may say, I didn't want to cause pain. What she really did not want is to have to
				deal with the other’s pain. The lie is a short-cut through another’s
				personality.
			Truthfulness, honor, is not something which springs ablaze of itself; it has to be
				created between people.
			This is true in political situations. The quality and depth of the politics evolving
				from a group depends in very large part on their understanding of honor.
			Much of what is narrowly termed "politics" seems to rest on a longing for certainty
				even at the cost of honesty, for an analysis which, once given, need not be
				re-examined. Such is the dead-endedness—for women—of <rs key="Marxism" ref="http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q7264">Marxism</rs> in our time.
			Truthfulness anywhere means a heightened complexity. But it is a movement into
				evolution. Women are only beginning to uncover our own truths; many of us would be
				grateful for some rest in that struggle, would be glad just to lie down with the
				sherds we have painfully unearthed, and be satisfied with those. Often I feel this
				like an exhaustion in my own body.
			
			The politics worth having, the relationships worth having, demand that we delve still
				deeper.
			The possibilities that exist between two people, or among a group of people, are a
				kind of alchemy. They are the most interesting things in life. The liar is someone
				who keeps losing sight of these possibilities.
			When relationships are determined by manipuation, by the need for control, they may
				possess a dreary, bickering kind of drama, but they cease to be interesting. They
				are repetitious; the shock of human possibility has ceased to reverberate through
				them.
			When someone tells me a piece of the truth which has been withheld from me, and which
				I needed in order to see my life more clearly, it may bring acute pain, but it can
				also flood me with a cold, sea-sharp wash of relief. Often such truths come by
				accident, or from strangers.
			It isn’t that to have an honorable relationship with you, I have to understand
				everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand,
				everything I need to tell you.
			It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling
				you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive, to me. That
				I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we both know we
				are trying, ail the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us.
			The possibility of life between us.
			</div>
		</body>

<back>
			<div>Adrienne Rich is a well-known poet and feminist who has published 9 books. The most
				recent one, <title key="Rich, Adrienne Cecile. | Of woman born" ref="http://viaf.org/viaf/9718159521652133070000/">Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution</title> (W.W. Norton
				&amp; Company), she described as coming “from the double need to survive and to
				work; and I wrote it in part for the young woman I once was, divided between body
				and mind, wanting to give her the book she was seeking...." </div>
		</back>
	</text>
</TEI>

Download

Object Type

XML document