Two amazing months back home with friends, family, and my beau. Home is not a perfect place to be in but I do get my perfect dose of affection, fights, disappointments, arguments, laughs, and heartbreaks. I found myself moving from one end of this spectrum to the other with such ease that it often reminded me of my ineptitude at doing the same with such simplicity when I am alone stranded by choice in one of the most fabulous cities of the world. What can I say, that's home for me. A place where I am my best and my worst self.
This time around too I moved between the two ends of the spectrum-of joy and sadness, of hate and love, of anger and peace with ease but what stayed behind for due venting was the story about what made me truly indignant.
It began with a visit to the parlor, the beauty parlor, and I am sure you'll see the irony of this story soon, but I went in there to relax, I wanted to treat my mum for a wonderfully relaxing spa, I wanted us to go into a deep soothing sleep and be rejuvenated to face the stress of a vacation. But what do i get? The lady says " You are very dark, you should get the skin lightening treatment", the other one looks to me and says " Your face is full of zits! you should certainly get your acne treated". Well! that makes me feel all better! I am going to turn into a beautiful swan. No more ugly duckling days!Yahoo! And whats more, I am going to also free myself from the disappointment a brown woman feels, by being scrubbed into light!
Here's another story, I visit a married friend and she tells me her gynecologist told her 23-26 yrs of one's life are the most fertile years for a woman and I should hence think about having children as well, just like she did! Well, I am married so she tells me that, what about you unmarried 23-26 year olds eh! want to be a Baby Mama?
Incident number three, we are walking atop a hill to look at the scenic Vellore, and be warned I am not guardian enough, a 24year old adult woman, to be protection for my eighteen year old adult sister. We are shooed away by my sisters school that says 'Women Are Not Allowed in Secluded Areas on their own!' I reason 'but we are together, not alone!' oh well! it doesn't matter, a flock of birds can be more self sufficient, safer and stronger than a couple of women walking up a cool looking hillock.
You want a fourth one to really spruce things up? Ok, I am walking back home, the area I live in is an upper middle class neighborhood but what can I say, upper middle class is not synonymous to safety anyway, and here I am, a 24yr old woman sprinting down the street at 8 in the evening and what happens? A young man on a speeding bike gropes at my chest and squeezes at my breasts. No I am not an auto rickshaw, I am a woman-the yin if you are the yang and the amimus if you are the anima. On that note, don't even get any woman started on what she undergoes at least once in a lifetime if she commutes by public transportation.
Yes, I am hinting at the woman's place in the world. Directly referring to it actually. My examples may be a daily lived experience and perfectly fine with many but that's exactly why its an issue. We have assumed a place of a being not good enough. We are open targets for horizontal and vertical "oppression" (for a lack of a better word) and stereotype. No I am not a victim of all the injustice done unto me but I am a survivor nonetheless, like many million women who are, but nevertheless, I succumb in subtle ways to the stereotype. I confirm your assumptions about who I should be, all the same. I am a romantic, I want flowers from my man, I want love to be expressed, I want children one day, I want the happily-ever-after. Are these desires so imbued in me via the society that I live in and by the people who surround me that I am not sure if 'I' want this or my socially construed self wants it? Well, I dont know. And I dont think it really matters even. I am what I am, thanks to Popeye.
What I ask for though is a world that respects people for being different. Yes, I am a woman who will never marry and would not want children. Why should I be talked about and taunted? Why should I be the one referred to when my friend doesn't get married by the time she is 27 or 28 years of age. 'You don't want to end up like her, do you?'. Yes, I am a woman who thought arranged marriage was the way to go. Iam married and now I live with my husband and his family, I have my moments, its hard and its amazing both at seperate times, but why do you feel the need to mention to me as an example of someone you don't want to be? Why the comparison? Why the competition to be someone better?
But coming back to my indignant self and my place as a woman. Where is my place if you want to always put me down? Where is my place if you tell me I am ugly when placed in a scale that has what media construes as beautiful and their version of the ugly? Isn't having zits a human right? where can I shove my really 'dark' face ? Where do I live if I am groped at every time I step out of my home? How do I work if my man boss thinks I am a woman and cant handle the stress that comes with being the CEO of the company I've spent 20 years of my life working at? Everyday, millions of woman are rendered powerless by their men, by their society that tells them they ought to live that stereotype, in that vicious cycle that begets more fear and more subordination each time a man proceeds to be a 'man'. I say 'Yes' 10 times for that one single 'NO' that I strive to conjure up, and this is me, a woman of 24years of age, born in an upper middle class family, with parents who were nurturing and life which was relatively comfortable. What of your household help who comes in with a black eye and says she hit herself against the wall? What of that mother who works only to waste away all that money earned, into the desires of her drunken husband? What of that powerful working woman who gives up her career because her husband cannot handle the competition? What of that creative girl who marries early only to stall her life for everyone else's priorities?
Its a brand new century for a zillion different reasons, but when are we going to get to a place where stereotypes are acknowledged, addressed and peeled away, where differences can be rejoiced and respected, where equity and equality are both on the same pedestal, where saying a NO is just as simple as saying a YES and where its not so much more work to be just who you are?
This time around too I moved between the two ends of the spectrum-of joy and sadness, of hate and love, of anger and peace with ease but what stayed behind for due venting was the story about what made me truly indignant.
It began with a visit to the parlor, the beauty parlor, and I am sure you'll see the irony of this story soon, but I went in there to relax, I wanted to treat my mum for a wonderfully relaxing spa, I wanted us to go into a deep soothing sleep and be rejuvenated to face the stress of a vacation. But what do i get? The lady says " You are very dark, you should get the skin lightening treatment", the other one looks to me and says " Your face is full of zits! you should certainly get your acne treated". Well! that makes me feel all better! I am going to turn into a beautiful swan. No more ugly duckling days!Yahoo! And whats more, I am going to also free myself from the disappointment a brown woman feels, by being scrubbed into light!
Here's another story, I visit a married friend and she tells me her gynecologist told her 23-26 yrs of one's life are the most fertile years for a woman and I should hence think about having children as well, just like she did! Well, I am married so she tells me that, what about you unmarried 23-26 year olds eh! want to be a Baby Mama?
Incident number three, we are walking atop a hill to look at the scenic Vellore, and be warned I am not guardian enough, a 24year old adult woman, to be protection for my eighteen year old adult sister. We are shooed away by my sisters school that says 'Women Are Not Allowed in Secluded Areas on their own!' I reason 'but we are together, not alone!' oh well! it doesn't matter, a flock of birds can be more self sufficient, safer and stronger than a couple of women walking up a cool looking hillock.
You want a fourth one to really spruce things up? Ok, I am walking back home, the area I live in is an upper middle class neighborhood but what can I say, upper middle class is not synonymous to safety anyway, and here I am, a 24yr old woman sprinting down the street at 8 in the evening and what happens? A young man on a speeding bike gropes at my chest and squeezes at my breasts. No I am not an auto rickshaw, I am a woman-the yin if you are the yang and the amimus if you are the anima. On that note, don't even get any woman started on what she undergoes at least once in a lifetime if she commutes by public transportation.
Yes, I am hinting at the woman's place in the world. Directly referring to it actually. My examples may be a daily lived experience and perfectly fine with many but that's exactly why its an issue. We have assumed a place of a being not good enough. We are open targets for horizontal and vertical "oppression" (for a lack of a better word) and stereotype. No I am not a victim of all the injustice done unto me but I am a survivor nonetheless, like many million women who are, but nevertheless, I succumb in subtle ways to the stereotype. I confirm your assumptions about who I should be, all the same. I am a romantic, I want flowers from my man, I want love to be expressed, I want children one day, I want the happily-ever-after. Are these desires so imbued in me via the society that I live in and by the people who surround me that I am not sure if 'I' want this or my socially construed self wants it? Well, I dont know. And I dont think it really matters even. I am what I am, thanks to Popeye.
What I ask for though is a world that respects people for being different. Yes, I am a woman who will never marry and would not want children. Why should I be talked about and taunted? Why should I be the one referred to when my friend doesn't get married by the time she is 27 or 28 years of age. 'You don't want to end up like her, do you?'. Yes, I am a woman who thought arranged marriage was the way to go. Iam married and now I live with my husband and his family, I have my moments, its hard and its amazing both at seperate times, but why do you feel the need to mention to me as an example of someone you don't want to be? Why the comparison? Why the competition to be someone better?
But coming back to my indignant self and my place as a woman. Where is my place if you want to always put me down? Where is my place if you tell me I am ugly when placed in a scale that has what media construes as beautiful and their version of the ugly? Isn't having zits a human right? where can I shove my really 'dark' face ? Where do I live if I am groped at every time I step out of my home? How do I work if my man boss thinks I am a woman and cant handle the stress that comes with being the CEO of the company I've spent 20 years of my life working at? Everyday, millions of woman are rendered powerless by their men, by their society that tells them they ought to live that stereotype, in that vicious cycle that begets more fear and more subordination each time a man proceeds to be a 'man'. I say 'Yes' 10 times for that one single 'NO' that I strive to conjure up, and this is me, a woman of 24years of age, born in an upper middle class family, with parents who were nurturing and life which was relatively comfortable. What of your household help who comes in with a black eye and says she hit herself against the wall? What of that mother who works only to waste away all that money earned, into the desires of her drunken husband? What of that powerful working woman who gives up her career because her husband cannot handle the competition? What of that creative girl who marries early only to stall her life for everyone else's priorities?
Its a brand new century for a zillion different reasons, but when are we going to get to a place where stereotypes are acknowledged, addressed and peeled away, where differences can be rejoiced and respected, where equity and equality are both on the same pedestal, where saying a NO is just as simple as saying a YES and where its not so much more work to be just who you are?
When is saying a no going to be as simple as saying a yes... lovely lovely post babe!! loved it!!
ReplyDeleteThe image of women is making my blood boil and i am completely fed up of being scared of walking on the streets i know like the back of my hand and wondering if every man on the street is going to grab my breast or my ass. Just when i started becoming more mentally secure I feel a threat to my physical security.