Women Awakening: I Am Subject Stories

This anthology is deeply personal, intimate, and profound both for the stories these women share so openly, and also for the requisite courage to do so.


an excerpt from “Escaping Eden”

I Am Subject Stories, edited by Diane DeBella

Escaping Eden

Lately I’ve been feeling sorry for Eve. She’s always gotten the raw end of the deal when it comes to Eden. The blame is laid squarely at her feet for getting man tossed from the garden. If it hadn’t been for her, we’d all still be living happily ever after.

Eve upset the apple cart — except it was more likely the pomegranate cart as there were no Red Delicious in paradise. Chalk up this misnomer to a faulty translation. Actually, a lot of bad translations have mucked up our mythical landscape. Take Cinderella’s slippers, or from the French, her pantoufles de verre (glass slippers). In the original telling they were pantoufles de vair, fur slippers. If we were to correct the translation now, the imagery wrapped around that fairy tale would – poof! – disappear. Swapping apples for pomegranates at this late date would render centuries of fine art null and void. So we stay silent and let some things slide.

I have my own theory. Eve didn’t get evicted; she escaped. I think Eve was bored out of her skull. She had no job. No children. She wasn’t gardening, or doing laundry, or even shopping. But how life changed when she stepped beyond the garden gate and discovered the flattering effects of a few well-placed fig leaves.