Also, just moving ahead as an adult is not expected of women in Southern culture — one is expected to at least FAKE not knowing what to do, asking Daddy, and so on. If you don’t do that you get into real trouble, and I did not figure this out until too late — did not figure out the duplicity (and don’t like it).
I figured out the duplicity that had brought me to a vulnerable condition in relation to others at the same time as I figured out that I was being abused at work. So I fought back against both these things simultaneously.
And it was all also linked to a NOTION of privilege that my family had -- although not with a counterpart of an actual experience of privilege, at least in the adult stages of my life.
I think that the cultural assumptions my parents had were that a young women will be treated by other members of her society with kid gloves, unless she is particularly evil, in which case she deserves all, or most, of what she gets.
You can see how the logic of this works in practice: So long as people are being kind to you, we, your parents approve of your behaviour. However, if people are cruel, then this is an indication that you have stepped out of line in some way, and you need to be punished severely for your misdemeanours -- and expect the punishment to continue until we find out what they are!
It's an extreme form of psychopathic idiocy -- kicking someone when they're down but applauding them when they are up, as if these conditions emulated the natural justice of the universe.
I think my parents' version of morality is extremely sick.
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