Spiritual Kinship

Femininity’s role in art seems to primarily be as a personification of, or a reprieve from, nature’s chaos.  

Although I’m a lover of most Classical Western art, I’m also a feminist. So while half of my bi-brain lavishes itself with dopamine at the sight of a woman draped in sunshine and flowers, the feminist in me worries what my joy implies. Internalized misogyny? Fat-phobic Western beauty standards? Objectification? 

I can’t decide if I want her or want to be her. 

In Spiritual Kinship, you see another classical facet of feminity: the nurturer. You get this vibe that the man is consumed by life, death, and everything in between while the woman, unable to understand his intensity, soothes it instead. 

Because if she did understand a fraction of the terror in his mind, I’m certain she’d be freaking the fuck out too.

So much of our art and media paints women as unable to understand the context in which they find themselves. 

This sentiment, in a roundabout way, also reminds me of the film trope Emma Thompson referred to as “Please don’t go and do that brave thing.” The women in love with history’s most consequential men never see past their own noses by recognizing the larger importance of their man’s destiny. Instead, they insist that domesticity should win out over the greater good, thus setting the male protagonist up to forgo her advice and save the day. Women are nags. Men are heroes. Don’t listen to them. Get it? 

Considering all that, however, I still love that Max Švabinský has captured a moving moment of intimacy. I’ve held my husband’s head while calmly kissing it, relishing in my emotional responsibility to my life partner. 

But sometimes he’s the one holding my head.

All of us are this dude sometimes. Caught in the paralysis of despair, we are in need of a gentle, loving soul to comfort us. But needing a nurturing shoulder to break down on means that there are times when we ourselves (regardless of gender) need to be that shoulder for someone else.

As we deconstruct gender and realize we’ve actually little need for it, we’ll need to, not just value feminine traits like nurturing and domesticity, but expect them from everyone, regardless of genitals.  

Wouldn’t that be a real spiritual kinship?