In Defense of Radical Selfishness.
When I was younger, both pre-married and newly married, people would always ask me about kids – specifically, when I was having them. (Currently, we’re holding commentary aside for why society can’t seem to ask women in their twenties or thirties about any of their actual accomplishments and instead needs to default to the lack of hypothetical progeny. But I digress.)
The question was never even “do you want them?” It was always either “when are they coming?” or “do you have them already?” Cue the shock on people’s faces when I answered with some combination of “never,” “no”,” and “I had my tubes tied in my twenties.” (Before I had a husband, oh my!)
One response I would very often get from other people (and especially other women) was, “That’s selfish.”
Well, duh.
Not that I was ever trying to be particularly daft, but I was just never sure as to why I should take it as an insult that someone called me selfish about my own life choices?
If I don’t spend my life being selfish about my own preferences, who will be?
“Did you mean self-prioritizing?” I always wanted to ask these people. “Self-protective, perhaps?”
“Oh wait, I know – you meant self-respecting. Perhaps the concept is a bit foreign to you – it must be, seeming as you find it perfectly acceptable to shame women for the choices they’ve chosen to make for their own happiness.”
(Ok, dear reader, I admit I was never that suave, but I look back and certainly wish I had been.)
Is the concept not absurd?
That we value the hypothetical happiness of children who don’t even existover the tangible and very real happiness of a woman who is doing her best to exist already?
That supposition isn’t limited to a woman’s choices about motherhood, either.
Now that I’m married and travel a lot on my own, I often hear a version of this same idea reflected at me from people who could simply never (!) travel without their spouses.
It doesn’t seem to matter a lick that:
- I’m a lawyer with my own practice in an area that I chose, and in fact, built, based on the idea that I wouldn’t need to be tied to a traditional office.
- He’s a chiropractor who loves what he does and is great at it, and cannot have his career outside the bounds of a traditional office.
- I have no kids (see above).
- I pay for my life, including my travels, without reliance upon anybody else.
- I’ve designed my whole life, since I was very young, around the idea that the most important personal value to me is freedom. And I’ve been at a place, for many years now, where I can reap the benefits of that life I designed for myself.
What’s the answer, according to these (miserable) married people?
Apparently, it’s that I should put the choices I made for my own life entirely on hold until they can be enjoyed with someone else who hasn’t made and doesn’t want the same choices for his own life despite the fact that I very intentionally built my life, my personality, and my future in a way that is maximized for my own personal satisfaction.
So, back to my original question: is the concept not absurd?
And more pressingly, does it not seem that the one thing society truly hates is a woman designing her own life in a way that works perfectly for her without deference to anyone else’s rules, preferences, or social norms?
Is that selfish?
I’d argue rather than selfishness, it’s reclamation.
It’s a woman having the audacity to position herself at the center of her own life, without apology and without explanation.
It’s not the choices themselves that cause people’s discomfort. It’s the freedom the choices embody.
In my own life, I’ve also noticed it’s the lack of placement. How do we classify a woman like that? Her identity is tied to neither mother nor wife. I’ve often found with women similar to me that her identity is also unbound from her job, her family, or her location.
Where does she fit? And how can we make her fit somewhere we understand?
In a world that categorizes and in fact values women based on their service to others, a woman choosing herself unconditionally – limitlessly – is an anomaly.
We have to call her selfish because we can’t just call her free. It’s not enough of a reprimand. It doesn’t dissuade others.
Cue the inevitable chorus of, “Okay but actual selfishness is bad. We couldn’t function as a society if people just selfishly put themselves first all the time.”
Well, yes and no.
First, are we “functioning” as a society as it is? We’re exploiting everything we can exploit (man, woman, child, animal, planet), policing almost everything we can police (woman, child, animal, planet), and attempting to destroy everything that doesn’t fit our stupid societal mold.
Forgive me if I’m not worried about my solo trips to Buenos Aires as a married woman.
Second, prioritizing yourself doesn’t mean being an asshole for asshole’s sake. It means honoring the ideal that you know yourself first, best, and most completely.
If you are entirely “selfish” but you know yourself, and the self that you know believes in honoring others, too – contributing to society, helping your fellow creatures, and generally being a good person – that “selfishness” that society hates will inevitably translate into service anyway: the kind that is born from the visceral joy of someone that belongs to herself, rather than the kind wrenched out of obligation.
A free woman, a woman who answers only to herself, doesn’t need anyone’s permission or anyone’s approval. In the context of the society we’ve built, that woman is ungovernable. And she defies the traditional “wisdom” we’ve passed down about what makes life truly meaningful for women – sacrifice, serving others, and suffering.
Radical selfishness is not rebellion for rebellion’s sake. It’s an antidote to the conditioning that society has thrust upon women.
So if you’re a woman reading this, I beg of you – please, spend some time thinking about the “selfish” wishes you’ve ignored because someone told you the worst thing a woman can be is selfish. And then go pursue them.
Love yourself first.
Because it’s not, actually, selfish.
It’s self-honoring. Self-possessed.
Self-aligned.