Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

The world carried women down this river so swiftly once they acknowledged they might even consider the choice. ‘Maybe’ became 2.5 in a flash. Plans to ‘go back part-time’ evaporated into fetid air. The only way to stop the slide was a firm ‘no’. Her birthday in a week. Thirty-four. Her mother and Gen were the only ones who knew. What good were birt

‘Oh, the dream. The goddammed man + baby dream. Written by the High Commission on Heterosexual Love and Sexual Reproduction and practised by couples across the land, the dream’s a bitch if you’re a maternally inclined straight female and not living it by the age of thirty-seven.’ – CHERYL STRAYED, TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS

That he could only benefit from having a wife whereas she could only suffer from having a husband? That they could fuck on equal terms but anything more than that would inevitably cost her? Wives and mothers were not art. Nobody wanted to be reminded of domesticity, of mundanity, mediocrity. And weren’t all mothers mediocre? All wives eventually mu

After we had that other fight, the big one, it hit me. It was because of her job. It all started when she was riding on her bike, in that stupid purple dress she wears for work, the one with the gold fringe, and a boy from my class saw her and made fun of her in front of everybody. I wanted to say shut up or I’ll make you shut up, but all I could d