Antonella Gambotto-Burke Quotes
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The very matrix of our ability to love and bond in later life, maternal sensitivity – or lack thereof – also determines cultural tenor.
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Our culture is now one of masculine triumphalism, in which transhistorically feminine expressions – empathy, sweetness, volubility, warmth – are seen as impediments to a woman’s professional trajectory in many sectors.
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Secret elisions within families are suddenly revealed by self-execution, and just as quickly sheeted with excuses, blame, and counter-blame. But sense is made of the world only through relationship between action and reaction, symptom and cause. No change is possible without analysis of accountability.
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There is a world of difference between the experience of 'care' – the wiping of a bottom, the bathing of a body: basic biological obligations – and the intimacy that makes us want to live.
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What does a woman feel when she is hit? My mother slapped me when I was a child - on two occasions, to the point of pure hysteria; I never liked it. Those who are humiliated in such a way learn to disintegrate – that is, they become once removed from pain. This is the most direct route to psychic ruin.
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Throughout history, the most brutal cultures have always been distinguished by maternal-infant separation.
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My generation was, in effect, the product of a social experiment. If we did not understand marital intimacy, it was because we had not seen it modelled. We lurched from relationship to relationship, dazzled by the newness of meaninglessness, relentless in our search for something even the most perceptive of us could not identify.
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It is only through my daughter that I have come to realise that a life without femininity – devoid of mystery, emotion, gentleness and the unerring power of a woman’s love – is no life at all.