Welcome!
Patriarchy is a sneaky little gremlin isn't he? Creeping around in the shadows, invisibly pulling the strings that control our lives.
This newsletter yanks that niggling hooligan out of the shadows and blinds him with a floodlight. Together we put those invisible strings under a microscope. Where we can't cut them, can we at least tie them into fun little animal shapes like hand towels on cruises?
As you read, it's my hope that you will feel like you are not crazy:
You are not asking too much to request your father does the dishes when he's at your house.
You're not wrong for making vomit noises during the scene in Miss Congeniality when a room full of grown men ogle over the hidden camera feed of a beauty pageant dressing room. (you would be wrong to not do that)
You are not crazy for asking your husband to take the kids to the doctor.
You are not being difficult to expect your brother helps to plan the next family reunion.
You're not out of line to ask how come Greta Gerwig got so much push back for sexism in Barbie but Christopher Nolan didn’t for the sexism in Oppenheimer? (answer: sexism)
You are not crazy. The system is crazy.
I’m a man. Am I welcome here too?
Absolutely. This is not a man against woman thing, this is an all of us against oppressive systems thing.
I’m thrilled you are here. Thank you.
But Celeste! We want more!
Excellent I thought so. Allow me to outline my offerings to you:
Free subscription
a free weekly article hitting your inbox every Sunday morning at 5:00am PT offering validation, encouragement, education and inspiration.
Some good company as feminist steam whistles out your ears.
Welcome and thank you for subscribing. I'm so glad you're here.
Paid subscription
Everything offered above and a closer-knit community via:
A quarterly book club on zoom to reprogram our brains together. (I write out the current book we are reading at the bottom of each post).
A paid subscriber chat to discuss the book we are reading and other patriarchal epiphanies.
Founding subscription
A monthly women’s circle on zoom.
Openings into the women’s circle is only open once a year.
If you are one of the kind, gracious, ridiculously good looking souls who pays me to write this Substack, may your Starbursts always be pink, may your toddler eat that piece of toast in its entirety and may that new show you want to watch be on the streaming service you already pay for.
Thank you. Bless you.
If you would like these blessings of good fortune in your life it’s only $6 a month to join- so one less vanilla chai latte and you’re all set:
About Me
Confession: I was once a trad-wife.
Wait don't leave!
I was born and raised to be a good little Mormon girl you see. As such I heralded the good news of patriarchy: that women exist to serve their husbands and children not just in this life but for all eternity.
So smitten was I with the prospect of eternal subservience that I became a marriage blogger from 2014- 2019 both for myself and for the LDS church (consider this Substack penance deposits towards my karmic debt to humanity).
I had an epic faith crisis circa 2018-2020 that left me basically comatose from worldview vertigo.
I left the church in 2020 and started writing about that on Instagram. If that’s how you found me- welcome! So glad you are here!
Deconstructing patriarchy rode on the coattails of deconstruction Mormonism for me, but guys patriarchy is even bigger than Mormonism! Who knew?! There is SO much to unpack!
Since I was blinded by the 1950s patriarchal dream sunglasses I wore until relatively recently, I'm discovering new invisible patriarchal strings every day that make my eyes bulge out like a regular Bugs Bunny:
90% of women in the work force report experiencing backlash for their success and ambition.
An overwhelming number of our society’s heroes treated their wives horribly and we don’t know and/or don’t care: looking at you Ghandi, Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan.
LDS prophets and apostles have been making home visits to women to tell them to stop telling other women they can pray to Heavenly Mother since the 1970s.
The spiritual work of men is to lose the self. The spiritual work of women is the opposite- to build the self, but all of our religious and spiritual tools-both Eastern and Western- are made for men’s needs.
Whether your feminist awakening is fresh or whether your eyes are drooping from being awakened so long, welcome. Let us rest a minute in a matriarchal blessing. (footnote: yes that is a Mormon riff on patriarchal blessing)
