Vignettes on Visibility & Giving-to-Gain.

Artist: Sarana Haeata

I keep hearing women talk about invisibility.

One woman said it was when she started going grey. Another said it was after forty. A lot of women say they feel as soon as the baby’s born, their well-being is no longer important. 

At some point… at least once… I think most women know this feeling. You’re in the room but not really seen. You’re speaking but not quite heard. You’re holding everything together but somehow fading into the wallpaper.

If lessons around invisibility arrive at 16 for one woman, at 40 for another, at work for yet another and postpartum for someone else- the common thread  appears to be some kind of evaluation. It’s tied to thinness, desirability, consumption.

It’s important to note this experience and telling is through the lens of a white, heterosexual, able bodied woman in a standard sized body. It feels obvious to state those living outside this privilege will experience more gruelling, cruel and often dangerous evaluations.

Body as Currency

As I turned 16 after a summer of committed vomiting- people I’d known my entire life started to notice me, almost startled at my existence. “You should do modelling,” some even said.

Rather than my visibility being erased, it had been validated. And with it, a lesson on how to be seen that would take years to unlearn.

Fast forward more than a decade, I was pushing my pram through the city, trying to manoeuvre into a lift.

Several men bumped straight into me. Not aggressively, not even on purpose. Just… as if I wasn’t there. Visibility gone.

Rolling these thoughts around, I spoke to a friend so maternal and wise she’s largely known as ‘Nonna’. She said she notices it most when she goes to the gym, a perceived preference to the younger, hotter, thinner.

My mother in law realised she’d become invisible standing with me at a social event. She said a man physically moved her aside so he could talk to me. I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even notice.

At a wedding, a friend told me she often finds herself as the only woman at a boardroom table of men in a male dominated industry. She described a visibility of sorts, her woman-ness sticks out like a sore thumb. But rather than it being empowering, she’s faced with the experience of bullying attempts to undermine her expertise in the industry. It sounded as though she was hanging on for dear life.

Institutional Invisibility

I watched my sister sit traumatised in a hospital bed following the violent birth of her first baby. Her fear and bewilderment was obvious, or so I thought. None of the doctors that traipsed in and out of the room acknowledged her ordeal or it’s impact. Instead, they listed the many shortcomings of my sisters body, as decided by them.

“At least the baby is here safe and sound”

I’ve wondered what my life would have looked like if the presentation of ADHD in girls and women was better understood when I was younger. I’ve fantasised about the shame I could have saved myself and the space I could have taken up.

Is making a pregnant woman with no breakfast in her belly drink a thick sugary drink before a series of blood tests really the only way to rule out gestational diabetes?. Is it really appropriate for some women to wait over a year to see a women’s health physio following birth?

Nonna and I found ourselves discussing the toxicity of the insecurities born from the invisibility of women fuelling the beauty industry, only continuing and strengthening the cycle.

It dawned on me that I may be shrinking under the cloak of invisibility by the standards of society but I’ve never felt more connected to my friends that are women. Just as the focus of my view of them continues to sharpen, I feel their twenty twenty vision on me.

Knowing looks, hands reaching under the table to squeeze a thigh in support. Voice notes and messages that start with “I just wanted to check in” before sharing an observation with empathic understanding of the impact are regular.

I was helping a friend to the car after one of our early kid dinners. She was juggling a mid-tantrum toddler, the baby and the bag. As we wrangled everything in and closed the door she said,

“I’m sorry I never helped you to the car when you had more than one kid, I didn’t realise”

Give to Gain

Esther Perel notes that becoming part of a community, and nurturing that community requires you at times to be a little uncomfortable.

To have your capacity stretched. It's how you breed mutual care and trust. No one wants to cook food for a meal train. 

But the act of extending your capacity, your time, your resources says I’m here for you in this. You pick my kid up from school at a moment's notice and you know I’ll return that favour. 

I’m part of an active messenger group that came about around the time of all 7 participants having their first babies. The chat is called “the village”. It started under the guise of organising catch ups at the coffee shop and last minute childcare for when someone went into labour. But nearly ten years in, the jig is firmly up. Half of them don’t even live in town any more. But who can deny themselves from a rolling narrative of validation? 

A good friend experienced a significant betrayal from her boyfriend. Her birthday fell during the time of her recalibration. In celebration, a bunch of us, all women, gathered at her house and drank wine as she tried on every item of her clothing as she decided what to keep and what to part with. She dressed and undressed and redressed in the middle of a circle of our compliments. She looked hot, and we told her.

A few years before, the same friend came and cleaned my house. She moved with a delicate purpose as I laid, feeding my baby, vacantly staring at the wall.

Another friend, with whom I was gifted a simultaneous pregnancy. Our connection deepened, like most friendships do when you share a maternity leave. As it was my third and her first, the gestational period was one of experience sharing and vulnerable discussions. After my friend gave birth, she wrote me a card that thanked me, she said our discussions had left a mark on her experience.

Six weeks later, on one of our afternoon walks, she shepherded me to the nearby house of a friend. She’d just witnessed me take the call informing me of my dads death. She managed to get me back to standing, get my grip back on the pram. My friend is no stranger to grief, and so the period that followed was one of experience sharing and vulnerable discussions. I probably should have written her a card.

The most maternal, nurturing, archetypal mother of our friendship group experienced years of heartbreaking infertility. Somehow, she managed to digest and process her own grief to remain excited for the waves of pregnancy news. She remained compassionate with shared experiences of terminations- it’s that stage of life. Meal train after meal train, she gave and gave- always arriving with far more than the expected dinner. It was a no brainer when she asked if I’d consider donating eggs for her to have a baby.

There's a quiet freedom in the shifting of audience rather than the disappearance of visibility.  The gaze we were trained to seek… the one measuring thinness, perky tits and desirability isn’t the only one available.

How freeing to be lolling about in the safety of these friendships with women who see you clearly. Without concern for whether you are, or are not, fuckable.