Frau Mutter Renate

꧁ “𝒯𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝒾𝓈 𝓃𝑜 𝓂𝒶𝓃 𝓂𝑜𝓇𝑒 𝑒𝓃𝓈𝓁𝒶𝓋𝑒𝒹 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝓌𝒽𝑜 𝒷𝑒𝓁𝒾𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓈 𝒽𝑒 𝒾𝓈 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝑒 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝒷𝑒𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓈𝑜.” – ( 𝒥𝑜𝒽𝒶𝓃𝓃 𝒲𝑜𝓁𝒻𝑔𝒶𝓃𝑔 𝓋𝑜𝓃 𝒢𝑜𝑒𝓉𝒽𝑒)꧂

The Performance Trap:

Why Are We Always Running?

Many people ask me why I love Mea Shearim and Bnei Brak so much. (For those who don’t know—these are ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Israel, places where tradition is everything, and modern life barely exists.)

People expect me to love big, open cities—places filled with modern art, neon lights, and endless entertainment just because i have tattoos or maybe because on my age. But instead, I find peace where everything stands still. Where the rush of modern life doesn’t exist.

Because let’s be honest:

Have you ever felt like the world is just one big performance?

Like your entire worth depends on how well you play your role?

You wake up, but you’re already behind.

You open your phone, and the first thing you see is:

📌 A woman, effortlessly beautiful, selling a face cream that makes 40-year-olds look 20.

📌 A man, perfectly fit, telling you that success is just about discipline.

📌 An influencer mom, running a business, raising perfect children, and still finding time to be a sex bomb for her husband.

Let’s be real.

📌 The 40-year-old woman never looked 40.

📌 The successful man never had your problems.

📌 The influencer mom is probably on the verge of a breakdown.

But still, we perform.

We work, we smile, we act like we have it together.

Because in this world, your value is your productivity.

And if you stop? You’re useless.

Do You Even Know Who You Are?

Or do you just remember what to say when someone asks for your ID?

How many times have you needed a second to remember where you were born?

Or how old you actually are?

When was the last time you did something just for fun—on your own terms, without guilt?

Not because it looked good online.

Not because it made you money.

Not because it would “help your future.”

But just because you felt like it.

Can you even name a moment?

How Did We Get Here?

The modern obsession with productivity isn’t just a coincidence. It’s built into the system.

📌 The Industrial Revolution taught people that time was money. Workers weren’t just people—they were machines in human form. You don’t exist; you produce.

📌 Capitalism took it further. It told us that if you’re not making money, you have no worth.

📌 Social media finished the job. Now, even your personal life must be productive. Every hobby needs to be a side hustle. Every moment needs to be content.

Karl Marx talked about this in his theory of alienation. He described how workers become disconnected from their labor, from themselves, and from each other. A person isn’t a person anymore—they’re a tool for profit. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_and_Philosophic_Manuscripts_of_1844)

But Marx was mostly talking about men. Women? Women never even got to be “just workers.”

📌 We were workers, mothers, caretakers, emotional support, sex objects.

📌 We were told to be everything—except ourselves.

And now? Nothing changed.

📌 Women are still expected to do it all—be mothers, CEOs, and therapists for men who can’t handle their own emotions.

📌 Men are still trapped in a system that tells them their only worth is how much they earn.

📌 And everyone—literally everyone—is exhausted.

The Performance Trap and Beauty Privilege

Society treats performance differently depending on how you look.

📌 A handsome man? He has every door open—job offers, leadership positions, trust. His success is expected.

📌 A beautiful woman? She’s automatically distrusted. If she succeeds, people assume she must have slept her way to the top.

Beauty privilege isn’t as simple as “pretty people have it easier.” It’s a performance requirement.

📌 A woman’s looks are expected to work for her but never because of her.

📌 A man’s looks are expected to confirm his competence, not replace it.

And let’s talk about women of color. If beauty privilege is already a trap for white women, the barriers are even higher for Black, brown, and Asian women. The “acceptable” beauty standards are often whitewashed, meaning women of color have to work twice as hard—both in their careers and in performing beauty in a way that’s “palatable” to society.

Children: The First Victims of the Performance Trap

And if you think this madness starts in adulthood—think again.

📌 In Poland and Germany, academic kindergartens are normal. Kids are pushed into structured learning before they even understand how to play.

📌 In Russia, a child who doesn’t play an instrument before walking is already “behind.”

📌 In China, academic pressure is so extreme that kids suffer from mental breakdowns—yet somehow, suicide rates among Chinese youth are lower than in Europe and the U.S.

📌 In Poland, suicide rates in the past 20 years exceeded 113,000 cases, with men being the overwhelming majority. (Source: https://www.ssph-journal.org/articles/10.3389/ijph.2023.1605621/full)

📌 In the U.S., 33% of bullied students report being targeted for their looks, and 13% for their race. (Source: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/a10/bullying-electronic-bullying)

📌 In China, rural kids are five times more likely to commit suicide than urban kids due to educational pressures. (Source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/suicide-rate-by-country)

So Who Are You When You Stop Performing?

Have you ever just laid on the floor, crying, not knowing where to go next?

Have you ever wondered who you even are outside of your job, your responsibilities, your “achievements”?

Because here’s the truth:

📌 You were not born to be useful.

📌 You were not born to just “contribute to society.”

📌 You were not born just to perform.

But can you exist without it? Or do you only feel valuable when you’re proving your worth?

That’s the real trap.

And if you don’t escape it? You will spend your whole life running, until one day—you don’t even remember why.

The Places That Don’t Run

In Mea Shearim and Bnei Brak, life is slow. Nobody is trying to be an influencer. Nobody is selling you a magic face cream. Nobody is screaming about hustle culture.

And maybe that’s why I love it there.

Because for once, in a world where everything is about performance—there, you can just be.

As the French say:

“On ne naît pas femme: on le devient.”

(“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” – Simone de Beauvoir)

And maybe, in this Performance Society, the real question is:

Who are you when you stop performing?