In a week when a 14 year
old girl is shot in the head by a grown man for promoting female education, in
the UK more revelations emerge from abused women who didn't have a voice less than 40
years ago.
It’s interesting to note how ‘unsurprised’
many people are about these recent cases; how conclusively collusive silence
muffles victims’ voices. But in the Swat
Valley 14 year old Malala had a voice; she wrote. She was that most dangerous of creatures, a
new women writing. At 11, when she
started her blog, her liminality protected her.
With approaching womanhood, her voice jeopardised her as fear of her
potential power threatened the ignorant around her.
There’s a 16 year old
girl in the north who’s afraid of the power of her own voice but through
support she is moving towards confronting her demons. I hope she makes it, she
deserves to. She’s kind and intelligent,
full of wit but terrified of becoming a woman.
Why? Because she’s had first-hand experience of seeing one particular
woman’s condition, her lack of agency; locked-in syndrome of the domestic
variety. What would recommend womanhood
to a girl who’s witnessed these things, a girl who’s too bright for her own
good, a thinking girl, an analyst?
I hope Malala makes it
with enough of herself to carry on. I hope A makes it by finding out there’s
another way to be. I don’t know what to
hope for the many victims of sexual abuse, male and female, throughout history
but I know this. As we walk through our
days, we are surrounded with them holding their secrets in lest anyone should
judge them as harshly as they judge themselves.
Looking back on those
decades which allowed Haut de la Garenne, the transportation of children, who
in turn were abused and countless other revelations, the only surprise is that
it’s taken this long to emerge. How well
I remember the sense of freedom that magazines like ‘Cosmopolitan’ offered to
our tender coming of age with the advent of reliable contraception. Finally, women were free from the fear of
pregnancy and could enjoy unfettered sexual freedom. Really? As quickly as that?
The other day, what
appeared to be an amusing encounter in a lift aptly summarises what contributes
towards silent disempowerment. Early
morning in the lift going up to my office, one male companion cheerful and
communicative. Lift stops, a man and woman
get in. Woman is carrying a green
plastic box under her arm labelled ‘Orthodox Christianity’.
I take a risk; make eye
contact, smile. Then to explain my boldness,
intrigued at the charming absurdity of being able to carry an entire religion,
and all that goes with it, under her arm.
She gets it but seems unimpressed. A shrug as if to say, ‘this? it’s
nothing’. Cheerful male companion picks it up.
He’s already been charming enough to hold open the security door for me
so we’ve bonded in human spirit. ‘Don’t
lose it’, he says laconically.
The fourth person joins
in. His timing is a little quick as if
he’s amused himself with his observation and has to get it out before the lift
stops. ‘Wonder what colour box Islam is
in?’ It’s good, it’s contributing, just. But he can’t leave it and continues by
describing an office scene, with dialogue, to do with what coloured box will be chosen
according to its religion. Then he muses
on appropriate colours. He has
appropriated the potential power of that encounter.
To paraphrase Nietzsche, a
joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling. The encounter was good; four
people interacted, spoke their thoughts and then went separate ways. I am an older woman now, getting older still
next week, so maybe it’s ok to have a voice, to engage people with it. No bullet in the head for the old. We fall into the sphere of desiccated experience
along with coconuts. Is women’s
fecundity so powerful that it requires entire religious and socio-political
systems to control it? To be a victim is
a terrible thing but to live in so much ignorance and fear that that these
pernicious systems are your only form of empowerment must be so much worse. Is it Islam, Orthodox Christianity or
something else that strikes you about the photograph on this post? I’m not sure where one religion ends and
another one begins but one thing I know, it’s not women who are man’s enemy or
custodians of their comfort. Both men
and women need to find their voice and protest at cruel and devisive structures
that prevent all of us becoming who we really are.
This is for two young people who know who they are and what they've got.
This is for two young people who know who they are and what they've got.
