Difficult

600 | An ode to difficult women

Photo by Brecht Deboosere on Unsplash

Difficult.

The word pops up on The Guardian’s Instagram reel, pausing my mindless swiping on my way home. White capslock text on a blue background, then the speech plays. He’s tight-roping the line between coy and sincere under rapid-fire questions, trying to conjure the image of a loveable rascal, a true battler. But tightropers are only interesting when they topple, and topple he does.

Difficult how?

I thought difficult had one association, but the comments devour themselves with pseudo-intellectual takes. True, there are many definitions, with varying contexts, but it is less so about the word, and more about who is saying it, and who it’s directed at.

But maybe I’m being too harsh.

He can’t have meant difficult to understand. They’re both well-educated, good speakers. She’s written a book; he hasn’t read it. They speak the same language, but the dialects of gender can differ drastically. See, for example, his use of the word ‘difficult’.

It could mean difficult, maybe, like a hard test. Studying the material up late at night, rewriting notes on flashcards to brand the words into memories. Like scratching what little you do know with 2B pencils. Pressing hard enough that the blunt tip of lead causes the paper to break, leaving charcoal blood-splatter across the page.

Difficult, as in the downturn of the economy. Difficult times, hard times, wearing times. Inflation that can’t be blamed on COVID, but also can’t be blamed on the corporations, who seem to get through everything unscathed, protected by their bulging profit margins. Economic frustration severing the bonds of cohesion and drawing imagined lines based on arbitrary characteristics.

Difficult like blunt nails scraping at the tight skirt of a Chuppa-Chup. Frustration giving way to animalistic nature, using teeth to tear its wrapping from its pale leg, then gracelessly taking the red watermelon succour in between lips. Like the urge not to bite down, to savour the moment – the prize of taking.

“Give him some credit! It’s out of context!”

Oh, difficult, then, as in living with trauma. Carrying it heavily in shoulders and in nervous systems. Passing down trauma in well-meaning but guilt-laden reminders. Leave the bedroom door open. Go with a friend. Always tell someone where you are. Carry your keys between your knuckles. Always twisting behind you in the dead of night. Knowing that if your vigilance fails, you will be the one blamed, for what were you doing out so late?

Difficult, personally, too. He’s having a rough go of it, don’t you know? All this division, and his party room’s in shambles. Ratings are tanking, but he’s trying his best! So it’s difficult for him, is what he meant, when she runs her mouth like that. What does she know about international relations anyway? His very important guest should be revered. He quite likes the idea of being revered.

Or perhaps he meant difficult like the untameable sign-holders causing fuss in town, hitching their skirts up to reveal ankle as they traverse wet mud. Enduring the insults hurled from their so-called protectors as they stand, diligently, outside the polls, waiting for their turn, their first turn. Knowing that they are leading the world, and that, later, other difficult women will wipe their lipstick off before sealing their ballots because they still fear political invalidation.

And later, still, men will shake hands with difficult women and compliment their difficult shirts at events. They’ll call them brave and heroic and true Australians, hoisted as a prize until difficult women no longer blindly obey him. Then, like boys cheated out of a woman’s sexuality, they’ll slag off difficult women. Only he is not a boy, his words have more weight than others, and he’s doing it in the press.

With one word, he has greenlit our debasement, and we will suffer for it like teeth on our Chuppa-Chup skirts.