Women and Tears

Abstract

Even the most loving woman is sometimes angry and feels passionately that there are things she lacks which she is entitled to have. Many have been taught that in a relationship they have no right to make demands on a partner; to say clearly what they want may lose his affection. It can be even more complicated. A woman may feel that if she expressed herself honestly, she would not only lose her partner’s affection but her self-respect by being selfish and unfeminine.

Surely, surely, they should both … be embracing each other and comforting each other and weeping. But human beings are endlessly ingenious about promoting their own misery. Even in catastrophe mysterious barriers can isolate them, barriers of fear and suspicion and sheer stupid moral incompetence. Iris Murdoch