On the deformation of preferences under conditions of inequality
collage text by Aurelia Guo
Julia’s constantly in these predicaments where she could be taken advantage of but she never is
This could mean as relatively little as trading some light flattery or a meaningful glance for an Oscar party invite
It could also mean the expectation of sexual favours, which, if not freely offered, might be coerced
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It is the role of men to protect women and to provide them with the comforts of life,
with questions like, ‘Have you ever been a prostitute?’ Or, ‘Have you ever gotten gifts?’ Or, ‘Have you ever asked for a movie role?’
Here three Chinese women walk down the street with their eyes cast down (out of modesty or
discomfort?) while the youngest, on the left, looks uneasily behind her
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like an alcoholic with the ‘fantasy of modest social drinking’.
She withholds food no matter how loud the cries get
She thinks of herself simultaneously as a ‘self-made person’ and a ‘damaged’ one
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They show up to help, but they bring the past with them
The longer people stayed in a dirty space, the less happy they became
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We were warned so many times against getting lost that it began to seem like an interesting prospect
I understood from books that children couldn’t have adventures unless they were unsupervised
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Freedom here might be better and more modestly described as a form of capability: the ability to sustain the moment, to experience, to not be ‘second-hand’.
It means finally being independent, but also facing the fact that you can’t do things the ‘normal’ way
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‘Michelle talks, day in and day out, about things that are not real’,
Like slow food, progressive politics, and non-toxic cleaning supplies
numbing her fears with pictures of shoes, clothes, purses and jewellery
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I don't trust us
Everyone has violence in them
I am violent
Notes
✷ Irin Carmon, ‘The Woman Who Taped Harvey Weinstein’ , The Cut, 18 February 2020.
✷ Anne Anlin Cheng, Ornamentalism, OUP, 2018
✷ Rachel Cusk, ‘Aftermath’, Granta, 19 May 2011.
✷ Naomi Fry, ‘The Weinstein Trial and the Myth of the Perfect Victim’ , The New Yorker, 17 February 2020.
✷ Sara Kaufman, ‘Living with Disability’, Vestoj.
✷ Elly Leavitt, ‘The Cleanliness of Your Home Is Impacting Your Happiness’, domino, 28 September 2018.
✷ Ann Patchett, ‘My Year of No Shopping’ , The New York Times, 15 December 2017.
✷ Sarah Nicole Prickett, ‘Julia Fox's Star Power’ CR Fashion Book, March 3, 2020.
✷ Laura Regensdorf, ‘Rachel Rabbit White Finds Perspective in Cemetery Nudes and False Lashes’, Vanity Fair, 14 December 2020.
✷ Jacqueline Rose, Women in Dark Times, Bloomsbury, 2015
✷ Sadie Stein, ‘The Robust Preciousness of Labour and Wait’, The New Yorker, 1 March 2017.
✷ Madeleine Watts, ‘Leave No Trace’, The Believer Magazine, 1 April 2019.
✷ Erin Yoffe, ‘The Debt’, Slate, 18 February 2023.
Aurelia Guo is a writer and researcher based in London. She is a Visiting Fellow at London South Bank University.