Resignation to the Reality of Womanhood

What struck me about The Husband Stitch, the opening story of Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado was the apparent lack of a clear moral. In reading the short story it is clear that Machado is making a commentary on womanhood and misogynistic violence, but it’s not very clear what that commentary is. This, I think, makes the story more powerful in a way, because there is no answer. There is no one way a woman can overcome misogyny entirely, and so Machado simply uses this story to display the pain inherent in womanhood, even if that pain is sometimes coupled with joy, love, agency, pleasure or anything else.

The ribbon is something that belongs solely to the protagonist—or at least, should belong solely to her. The protagonist’s husband is fascinated with the ribbon, and as the story unfolds he becomes more and more aggressive in his requests to touch it. He repeatedly uses the phrase “I want” in relation to the ribbon: “I want to touch it,” (6) “I want to know,” (21.) This phrase “I want” is juvenile; it reminded me of the husband’s initial introduction as having a voice “robust with serendipity,” (3.) He wants something, so of course he can have it. If the husband is an archetype of any man, this is important. The protagonist repeatedly tells him that the ribbon is hers, and the reason that he cannot touch it is simply because it does not belong to him; it belongs to her. “The ribbon is not a secret; it’s just mine,” (20.) “I’m not hiding it. It just isn’t yours,” (21.) And yet, none of these quiet pleas for privacy and respect seem to affect her husband. She is his wife, so if the ribbon belongs to her, it also belongs to him—because she belongs to him. Machado makes an explicit point of demonstrating to the reader just how devoted the protagonist is to her husband, physically. She appears to give him everything he wants in a sexual sense—except for the ribbon, which in its forbiddenness becomes a kind of turn-on for him. Regardless, the fact that she gives him everything he wants isn’t to say that their sexual relationship is transactional; it is clear that she is partaking for her own pleasure as well. But nonetheless, some of the sex scenes have a distinctly violent sense to them, demonstrating that for the man, sex is in part about ownership and power, and she knows that. The scene where she loses her virginity is primarily focused on his pleasure, and her pain is described violently: “when he breaks into me I scream and cling to him like I am lost at sea. His body locks onto mine and he is pushing, pushing, and before the end he pulls himself out and finishes with my blood slicking him down,” (5.) The narrator doesn’t characterize this as a negative experience by any means; she loves him and notes that while it hurt she could imagine it feeling good. But I felt that this scene was really trying to say something about heterosexual relationships, and an experience that is nearly universal among heterosexual women. The first time often hurts for the woman, and yet is this incredible pleasure for the man. And in this case, her soon-to-be husband seems unconcerned that his pleasure comes at the price of her pain.

At the end of the story, right before the narrator finally gives in and allows her husband to remove her ribbon, ultimately killing her, she has a thought that I think gets to the crux of the story. “Resolve runs out of me. I touch the ribbon. I look at the face of my husband, the beginning and end of his desires all etched there. He is not a bad man, and that, I realize suddenly, is the root of my hurt. He is not a bad man at all. To describe him as evil or wicked or corrupted would do a deep disservice to him. And yet—” (30.) There is a lot of meaning in this passage. It begins with “resolve runs out of me.” Just being herself, being a woman, trying to keep the one thing that she owned to herself and from the man who was supposed to love her, is too exhausting. I interpreted this passage as an acknowledgement of the fight inherent in womanhood, and the entitlement inherent in manhood (at least given the way that young boys are socialized currently.) Her husband is not an anomaly; he is not violating her with malicious intent. He simply believes that he is entitled to this part of her, just as he is to every other part of her, because the idea of something out of his reach is unfathomable to him. She realizes in this moment that he is just a man, and a normal, (sort of) decent one at that. And yet—he has caused her so much pain, unknowingly. This, I feel, is what the story is saying: that women spend much of their lives catering to men’s desires at their own expense. The protagonist fully understands this (her husband doesn’t) and yet, like all other women, there is nothing she can do.