Lessons of My Mother

The second chapter we read this week was in Colonize This? Femme-Inism: Lessons of My Mother written by Paula Austin. This woman is a girl who grew up in British Guiana before moving to the United States when she was four years old. The writing starts out with the writer expressing everything her mother had taught her from being sexual to being invisible. She talks about how her mom did anything and everything for her little sister and her to survive even when it came to selling herself for sex. Because her mother sold herself for sex she became dependent on alcohol as a way to cope and in return abused her daughters. The mother of the writer uses make-up as a form of armor to hide herself behind and in return she teaches her daughters to do the same. Her mother did however urge her children to excel in school so they could get a good education and not have to depend on a man. When she was twenty she really became to know who she was as a black woman she also came out as a lesbian at this time. The writer talks about how her mother having armor taught her how to use her armor to go through life and she tells a story about when she was around twenty and her car breaks down. During the story she explains how she used her womanhood to get help with her broken down car. This reading was very interesting as I am sure this is probably more common than we can imagine and not only in her culture but many other or even all cultures.

#lessons #armor #sex #lesbian #femmeinism