Dear beloved readers,
After an intense marathon of The Handmaid’s Tale, which I have to admit, left me with nightmares and in need of a shrink, I felt myself this week…in my head, to say the least. I am not much of a sharer of the things I watch or read, mostly for the sake that my taste can be quite silly sometimes, but there are things in life that are so dense and raw that everyone needs to see it. Seriously, even if you think it isn’t your cuppa.
The last time I saw Tony, we were talking about this one question that is always brought up in the middle of our exhausting, existential conversations about this or that, we are basically trying to figure out this universal question that some people dared to respond once or twice, and even though loving the original feminism mother, Simone de Beauvoir, more than life itself, I am still over here trying to understand what the fuck it means to be a woman!?
Simone once said, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”, and that is stuck with me for half my life now. And The Handmaid’s Tale put this even deeper in my head and made me even more in contact with this need to answer the question Tony and I have been wondering about since we met.
I guess this need for an answer comes with the association that, at least I find myself making all the time, that being a woman is only the bad for me. Being a woman is the moments in which I know I am going to be considered less because of it, and the moments I know I will be vulnerable for it too, the moments of fear in crossing a dark street by myself, and I can tell you I am never as aware of my womanhood than when I am scared for dear life, maybe on my way to a date, maybe getting in a cab, maybe wearing whatever I want.
But I refuse to believe that being a woman resumes to the bad aspects of it, to the things that the answer to the “being a man” question, might define of us. And it’s frustrating, because thinking about the too close to be comfortable dystopia that is The Handmaid’s Tale, this whole male perspective over what we are and what makes us, got even scarier. The idea that our role in society was once upon a time to have children and marry man, to be a good wife and mother, to be quiet and lowkey, to be silent and often enough, inexistent. And watching that in an even more fucked up way on the screen, made me feel a certain type of way.
It wasn’t pleasant, it made me even more aware of that vulnerable feeling, with the knowledge that for some people, maybe I will always resume to this, a breeding bitch, or less than a human, unwoman as they say in the show. And that left me with a bad taste in my mouth, but it also made me realize another moment that, may also be an answer to the sexist world we were raised in, but that also makes me feel very much in contact with my womanhood, and that is when I am speaking up, fighting, raising my voice and using it, wisely. When I don’t let the aspects that may define me as one of my kind, tell me how to feel about myself, and who I am.
In my freshman year of college, I wrote an essay – that was later transformed into a blog post – about casual sex and how sexist some stereotypes around it can be. It was not meant to be brought up in class, one of those turn in projects that if you get a grade you can only hope that’s enough feedback for you to know if you did good or bad. But in one random day, we were sitting in a circle in class, discussing sociology of all things, and someone brought it up something related to my essay, and a discussion that my teacher wanted to avoid for being “too polemic”, turned into a monologue by me, that felt something like rapping Satisfied in Hamilton, fast and furious, full of anger and desperation, to be heard, to be heard fast – women don’t get much time to speak their minds, so whenever we do get the chance, we must make good use of it and if possible, be as fast as possible. I remember feeling so out of breath by the time I finished, having my classmates – at the time, merely strangers – watching me closely, trying to process whatever the hell I just vomited at them, and for a second, it got excruciatingly quiet, and then, the melody me and Tinker Bell live for – applauses. They were loud, fast and warm, filled me up with power and a taste in my mouth that felt too close to pride, and that felt like being a woman to me.
The first powerful woman I met was my grandmother. First person divorced in my hometown, abused, bruised and very lonely, but the smartest, cleverest and dare I say most stylish person I’ve ever met. She had the type of pain in her eyes I know recognize on my own, of perhaps being too ahead of her times, likely loving too intensely, and being too much for this cruel world sometimes. She had hopes and dreams for her life at one point, those vanished when trapped in a loveless marriage and the birth of three that turned out to be just two. But from the day I was born until the day we found out she was never going to be the same, my grandma always made it clear that she wanted everything she couldn’t have for me. I remember the first week of college, I called her, something that I regret not doing more often, and I cried, I don’t think she knew I was crying but I was, and I was scared too, and she gave me the single greatest advice that I’ve ever heard. She said sometimes, people will hate me solemnly for being a woman, they will say I am too loud, too much and probably even call me a bitch at one point, but as far as she was concerned, bitch stranded for “being in total control of herself” so she said, “Dear, be that bitch”. And maybe, that is what being a woman is all about.
It’s about being a bitch and speaking up, feeling the fears that may at times define us and shape them into this unstoppable fucking rage that will give us enough power to say whatever the hell we want, exactly like my grandma, exactly like June. I may don’t know what being a woman means just yet, but I know that every single woman I’ve ever met was the single most amazing human I’ve ever got to meet. We are all so smart, so genuine, we carry so much of the same inside us, the same scars and fears, we trade complicity looks and we understand each other in levels above common sense. And I love women, I love our power, and I will fight for us, with us, forever.
Until next week beloved readers, perhaps with another feminist vow, luckily in time. Stay safe and out of trouble, unless said trouble is defying the patriarchy, if that’s the case though – oh my god, tell me all about it.
– Your Girl on the Go