10 Burning Q's with Author Melissa Petro
The author of 'Shame On You: How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification' debunks the shame game for the sake of unFCKng MUTHRs everywhere
Talk about MUTHR, FCKD!
Melissa Petro was made to feel a FCKTN of shame when the New York Post outed the then-New York City public school teacher’s past as a sex worker. Though it hurt like hell when she resigned, part of her refused to go quietly. Lucky for us, she launched a rewarding career as a writer and creative writing teacher.Perhaps that’s why her book about shame, Shame On You: How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification, reads as something of a feminist manifesto. By weaving copious research into the resonant personal anecdotes of over 150 female-identifying sources, Shame On You dissects the concept of shame and its manifestations in the lives of women thoroughly, as it tackles where shame begins in our lives, how it’s deployed in feeding and maintaining the patriarchal norms that oppress women, and what we can do about it.
As Petro writes in this book, talking openly about what makes us feel shame is part of the antidote. She begins by attempting to define the slippery, elusive term while conscious of the futile exercise, as shame manifests itself differently in all who experience it and no one is immune to its effects.
“Shame is a pernicious emotion that defies definition,” she writes. “It’s the painful distress that comes from knowing you’ve not lived up to an expectation, however unrealistic or impossible that expectation might be. Not only have you failed, but in shame, you hold yourself singularly responsible for that failure.”
Then she explains how this distress makes us turn on ourselves.
“At its core, shame is an existential feeling of unworthiness and profound inadequacy. It is not just the fear that others will find you unlovable. It is a deep-down fear that you don’t deserve to be loved.”
Petro recently hopped on a Zoom with your MUTHR to discuss the process of writing Shame On You, and how breaking the layers upon layers of shame cycles in our lives might help us MUTHRS to unite in unFCKng ourselves from the shitpile of shame used to constantly manipulate us.
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