day no. 16,758: the past she never had

"It is right for the woman to climb into whatever cathedrae or high places she can allow to her sexual dignity. But it is wrong that any of these climbers should kick the ladder by which they have climbed. But indeed these bitter people who record their experiences really record their lack of experiences. It is the countryman who has not succeeded in being a countryman who comes up to London. It is the clerk who has not succeeded in being a clerk who tries (on vegetarian principles) to be a countryman. And the woman with a past is generally a woman angry about the past she never had." — G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

A woman cannot ascend to integrity by diving into things beneath her dignity. You cannot degrade yourself for an upgrade without losing something in the process. If you give up your virtue of your sex to pursue the vices of the other, you only end up with the vices of both. A feminist cannot climb the corporate ladder and then kick at the corporation for not giving her children. She cannot degrade herself for the sake of applause without robbing herself of the affirmation she desires. In other words, you cannot embrace compromise as a means of obtaining purity.

Bitterness is finding the fruit of your sowing insufferable. It is laying in the lumpy bed you insisted on making. It is anger over the past you should have chosen and the future you cannot have. The feminist is, therefore, always pissed about the past she never had and the future she never wanted.

"The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have." — Søren Kierkegaard