Hmmm…

Cherish has 3 definitions.

Cherish: to protect and care for (someone) lovingly.

How can you be cherished when historically marriage has been a corrupt bargain, forced on women via economic disenfranchisement and we all still bear the consequences of that? How can you truly know how to protect and lovingly care for someone when they are such an enigma to you, so alien, so foreign that (you claim) you can’t understand them?

Cherish: to hold dear

How can you be cherished when you have a shelf life?

How can you be held dear when all too often it’s out of sight out of mind. Every ask is quickly forgotten?

Cherish: to keep (a hope or ambition) in ones mind

How can you be cherished when your hopes and ambitions are not honored, but expected to be set aside for the service of the one claiming to cherish you?

How can you be cherished when you’re all too often so easily forgotten?

Hmmm.

Perhaps women don’t feel cherished because they’re aware of what the word means.