I'm Not Afraid... But Should I?

Look at me, blogging about something that isn't even really in the list I posted a few days ago!

I could say, 'That's me!', but that'd be a lie - first of all because I'll end up writing about all the topics that I announced (even if I do so slowly), and there are bits of what I'm about to mention that are included in my list.

I'll blame this post on the season, or on karma.

I mean, the end of the year is the perfect time to look back and balance the latest events and our feelings, and the prospect of ending up with my family for Christmas is always making me feel introspective-ish.

As well, things have been improving a bit for me (recovering from a rather long illness at last, having more energy, people being nice and caring), and that makes me wonder if it’s something karmic (wheel turning and bringing me back up) or if I should expect the second shoe to drop and fall onto my poor head.

Another reason for these lines is my mother, and let’s not forget my neighbours, too.

Let’s start with what happened here at home.

The thing about my mother is that she forbade me to go to a feminist demonstration because ‘demonstrations can be dangerous, what with those thugs who go there just to cause trouble and hurt people’.

Right… I ended up not going, but because I had to go to work, and since I am the bread-winner, I had no choice but to skip that demonstration. It didn’t help the other ladies that I was there, with them – in my heart. They needed as many people as possible on the streets.

I may be barmy, or suicidal (or I don’t know what), but what I gathered from my History lessons is that if you don’t fight for your rights when someone (or a group) tries to turn you into a second-class citizen, you usually end up caught between a rock and a hard place.

I’m lucky enough to live in a democracy, in a (relatively) rich country; a place where I can live my life and make choices without having to ask my father/brother/husband/son if I can breathe… pretty please. I have wages that allow me to pay the rent, and eat, and not be frozen in winter, and I can even buy books if I’m reasonable. I pay my taxes, and I’m a good citizen.

I have two luxuries: time and independence.

My mother paid for my MA, but I got three jobs (paid peanuts) to get my MSt and my PhD. I’m proud of my theses and of my work (all the more since one of my teachers almost suggested that I leave college to start claiming unemployment benefits because I’d never succeed).

I wouldn’t change my life for all the tea in China, and I wouldn’t choose another career because I happen to love my job, and that even if I’m not working in my initial field. You see, the problem is that I became a specialist in something that gets one open position maybe once a decade, and the last job was given to… a man. I can’t even be angry or disappointed with the ones who chose that bloke over me because they, in their little brains, truly believed that I was married and didn’t actually need to work. In their heads, if I was doing what I was doing, it was just for fun, not because I had bills to pay. I’m writing this quite calmly because these people really didn’t think I needed the job, and when I explained the situation, my coordinator had the decency to pale and flinch because he’d been unfair and sexist.

I adapted my knowledge, caught a few googlies, got my sea legs in a neighbouring field that had more opportunities, and moved on.

I’m rather strong, but there were moments, as I was dealing with people who treated me like a silly little girl (just because I happen to be XX), when I almost collapsed. It’s hard to face harassment at work because you’re a woman and you work with men who went to school riding on dinosaurs.

My mother thinks I should be cautious, quiet and discreet. I should be unseen, not to attract any unwanted attention, as if this world weren’t full of plonkers who think they own you.

She’s my mother. Should she wish to protect and wrap me in a giant heap of cotton wool, or should she be ready to dress my wounds when I crawl home after a fight to defend my rights or my freedom? You can bet a quid on the latter if this were my script, but, as you can guess, she opted for the cotton wool, and she’d like to keep me in a box, as well.

Let’s have a look at my neighbours now, shall we? It turns out that I’ve known some of them for… well, too long actually. They saw me managing to pay for my last years of college, they saw me find a decent job (still temporary, but, hey! It’s a good job that looks gorgeous on my CV, and I’m proud of that job that I found all alone), and they saw me publish a handful of research articles in a respectable magazine.

Now, let’s play a game, shall we? What do you think they ask me when they see me?

Could it be ‘How’s work these days?’ or ‘Getting a permanent position soon?’?

Well… of course not. The two main questions that come back (and do make me feel slightly murderous) are ‘Still not married?’ and ‘Still not pregnant?’

Swell.

Just brilliant.

Go on, make me feel like chattel.

They completely ignore half of my life; whatever I achieve in my professional life is ignored, as if it were nothing. Yet it’s not unimportant, I fought to get my education and a job I love.

In their world, I’m not complete because I’m not married, or I don’t have a child - at least.

That makes me feel… like a second-class citizen.

Sometimes some of them, my mother included, say that it’s better to be alone rather than stuck with a twat, but you can see the pity in their eyes. Sorry, guys, but I’d rather swallow hot coal than be stuck with a plonker.

If I were to find someone decent, I’m not a complete misanthropist, I’d appreciate companionship. If I were to find a fellow writer, I’d have a whale of a time sharing plots and discussing books. I’m open to karmic twists, but I’m not looking actively (the reason will be shared in a future post – perhaps the next, I think).

As to becoming a mother, I’m deeply convinced that it’d be criminal to give a baby half of my DNA, and my Mary Poppins side is limited to her wardrobe. Were I to tell neighbours and mother that I’m planning to sponsor a child when I have enough money to do so, they’d probably go on pitying me because it’s oh-so-important to perpetuate one’s DNA (seven billion bipeds on this planet, people. Time to think and act like adults).

When I’m really tired and/or angry, I want the script to go that way:

Them: ‘Still not pregnant?’

Me: ‘No, I’m a lesbian.’

That would shock them, and I know they’re too slow to realize that, were it true, it’d prevent me from getting married, but pregnancy wouldn’t be impossible with today’s techniques.

Or there’s that one:

Them: ‘Still not pregnant?’

Me: ‘No, I can’t have children, but thank you for reminding me.’

That’s the nasty part of my brain that wants to make them feel bad for annoying me with their boring leitmotiv. With my luck, it’d backfire, and they’d become more invasive than they already are.

So I keep my mouth shut and I don’t yell at them, though I really, really want to because I may not have family portraits above the mantelpiece, but I’m doing some good things and I’m a curious, clever gal who’s learning as much as she can and is constantly amazed with our universe.

There are a few days when I feel low, but I try to cling to my books, to my ideas and to my dreams (I must admit that since I’ve stopped working for the place that I’d nicknamed Bedlam, my wish to slit my wrist is below zero). I’ve been training to write for years, and now that I’m working on stories of my own, these will be my legacy.

Since nothing is perfect in this world, I should be happy with my quiet, if imperfect, lot… but there’s a buzz in my ear, like a fat, hungry mosquito in the dead of night.

Mark Twain said “If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed”. Since the day I noticed that my favourite newspapers had websites, I started subscribing to one’s daily newsletter, and then to another one’s, and… so on and so forth.

Today I get e-mails from one newspaper from Japan, Russia, Ukraine, Sweden and France; I get three from the UK (plus regular visits to Auntie Beeb, dear old darling) and five from the US (more surface over there!).

I’m probably mis- and over-informed (thank Merlin, reading fast is one of my gifts!).

What I see in the world about the state of women’s conditions is scary, inhuman and makes me want to learn the ancient art of Chinese torture in order to make ‘an eye for an eye’ a valid way to avenge my sisters.

Reading the news is now what makes my brain start in the morning long before tea kicks in, because my blood’s boiling and I’m usually frothing at the mouth with anger and disgust long before I bite into my daily apple.

I’m not saying that everything’s simple and easy for men. I’m neither stupid, nor heartless, but it’s really not painless being a woman on Earth.

Of course, we get a few insufferable bratty princesses who throw temper tantrum if they don’t get the latest gadget – in platinum, but they’re red herrings for fishwrappers.

Open any newspaper and you’ll read about young girls being sold to brothels, refugees being gang-raped, survivors being beaten, lesbians being raped to make them ‘normal’, victims being told that whatever happened to them is something they deserved because they weren’t wearing the proper clothes (slut walk, anyone?), maids being assaulted in posh bedrooms and then disparaged, women being forced to wear burqas in order to be able to go out find food for their children, women being put to death by their State or their relatives because they were raped, teens forced to marry their rapists, women not allowed to go to school, to vote, to drive…

I could go on typing, and each story would become more heart-wrenching as I’d add details, names and faces to these ordeals.

The stories of the horrors happening on this planet make my heart weep. Sometimes they make me wish that I had a gun, knew how to use it, and were able to reach, in the wink of an eye, the ones who need protection and help.

The world doesn’t work like that, and I’m just a tiny little gal. In fact, I’m not sure I’d even be able to protect myself if blokes (or just a big one) attacked me, and that brings me back to my doorstep.

I somehow feel safe in my big democracy because I’m independent, I’m not living under a bridge, and I can even enjoy what I consider luxuries behind the solid door that keeps the pettiness and narrow-mindedness of my neighbours and relatives outside my life and soul.

I’m no one’s property. I can decide where to go, what to do (I’m learning to scratch play the violin, and I’ll be flying a Cessna before the next millennium), who to see, what to say and what to wear (minus a future hiccough with my mum about that bunny wool cap that she thinks I’m too old to even consider wearing). As well, my colleagues are good people, and I can make choices about my health.

Things look good, don’t they?

But, do they? Are they really, really good? Aren’t we about to enter some vicious cha-cha?

Look at the politicians saying that “mothers” have to make sacrifices (er, guys, what about the other half of the parental unit? You know… the fathers).

Look at the religious extremists (pick whatever flavour!), who brandish their lil’ books and want women to go back to a past that exists only in their tiny brains.

Look at that female MP who wants to limit access to abortion, pretending that she’s concerned about women’s health when, in fact, she’s the puppet of some religious group.

Watch Nina Hobson’s Dispatches and start whimpering (when a female police officer says that she wouldn’t bother reporting it if she were raped because it’d lead nowhere, you understand that things aren’t as good as you thought).

Check your wages and compare them with a male colleague’s and see for yourself that equal pay isn’t here yet.

That list could go on and on, as well.

I was allowed to think, was sent to school, wasn’t sold into slavery.

I can walk freely and blog about it, but just as I have to be careful when I head home late at night, I’ve got to be careful about my freedom and my privileges.

I’ve got to stand up to defend my rights as a human being. I’ve got to fight here if I want to be able to do something, however little it might be, for my sisters, wherever they are, who find themselves in ugly situations.

The next time there’s a feminist demonstration, I won’t speak about it, but I’ll go. To make contacts, to meet sisters (and brothers) who believe in the same things, in the same kind of humanity.

I’m not afraid, and I shouldn’t be because, otherwise, that’d mean that the bigots and plonkers have won, and they’ve turned me into a child who needs protection. I’ll be wary, but I won’t give in to fear.

I don’t want to have to fight, but I will if need be, because the alternative is surrendering my freedom to someone who’d become my owner, and there’s simply no way in hell I’m letting that happen.

I’ll start right at my door, and next time I get the annoying questions, I’ll tell them my truth: I’ll be a sponsor when I’m ready, but I’m not a mother, and I refuse to be tied to someone who wouldn’t be my equal intellectually and who wouldn’t treat me as an equal (not out of the wood here).

I bet I’ll have to hammer a few ideas in their brains.

One step at a time, starting on my doorstep.

Chin high.

Rolling pin at the ready.