Feminism. It's an ugly word isn't it? Upon hearing or reading it, a plethora of images come to mind: angry women, men-haters, bra-burning, butch lesbians, machismo-rich men, women-haters, men beating up women, men sneering at women, men 'putting women in their place', 'make me a sandwich' jokes, 'get in the kitchen' jokes, most of the jobs at the top all over the world occupied by men, women at the top being viewed as power-hungry bitches whose careers are their pride and joy [tantamount to sacrificing an infant on an altar to Satan while laughing with glee], women who are anti-family, women who are anti-children, hippies, underarm hair, leg hair, protests, heated discussions in all forms of media, women with pretty nails and pretty hair saying 'oh no, I'm not a feminist' or 'I hate feminism', women with pretty nails and pretty hair saying 'I'm a feminist', men standing up for women, women's rights,
and the list goes on and on and on. It's endless, and most of the images aren't positive - whether they're in favour of or against feminism.
So many people don't understand why feminism is important, why it is still needed today, why it will always be needed, and why the name should be done away with and the whole concept called something else.
The truth about feminism is this: it's not about women. It's about men. It's about everyone. In fact, if a completely new gender showed up, it'd be about people of that gender too. It's about straight people, gay people, bisexual people, transgender people, asexual people. It's about mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, colleagues, enemies. It's about everyone.
What do you mean it's about everyone Macs?! It's feminism, read the name - F E M I N I S M. That's got to be about female, feminine, women, girls, and all that jazz, so why are you going on about all that stuff you just rattled off in the paragraph above this? Bitch you CRAZY.
Alright, I'll bite that bit of baiting. Feminism is usually about sticking up for females, agreed. But tell me, what will happen if all the females in the world were wiped out? Mass extinction, that's what, because we're half of all populations [I'm not just talking human, people], a hell-ton of grieving from all the males whose beloved females of all relations were gone, economic meltdown because hey women are part of the workforce, and the destruction of life on the planet. So clearly, sticking up for females is a good thing.
Guess what though: the same thing would happen if all males magically disappeared at one go. And no, the survival-due-to-pregnant-females clause won't work here, because all male unborn offspring would be gone too.
BALANCE, PEOPLE! That's what I'm talking about here! Without one gender or the other, no species can survive for long. Why would anyone want either gender to be 'better' than the other? Clearly both are necessary, so why screw the species? This means that all parts that make up a population need to be looked after, cared for, and appreciated. [Note: this same argument explains why racism - and racialism, don't think I don't know that loophole - is stupid]
This of course explains why feminism needs to be, at the very least, rebranded. And this is happening, don't think it isn't. One of the things a feminist doesn't have to be is female.
What makes you a feminist? That's an easy one. If you believe that people should be treated with respect, regardless of gender, you're a feminist. If you believe domestic violence is wrong, you're a feminist - because most victims are female. If you believe men and boys who wolf whistle, catcall, holler at, cajole, and leer at women and girls walking down a street are disrespectful, you're a feminist. If you believe women are not just meant to be mothers, you're a feminist. If you believe women and men have the same capacity for intelligence, you're a feminist. If you believe that when a woman or girl says no, she means no and you should back off, you're a feminist. If you believe you would want to beat 10 kinds of hell into anyone who physically hurts your sister/daughter/mother/cousin/aunt/grandmother/friend/colleague or any female, you're a feminist. If you believe girls and women should have the same education as boys and men, and be given the same opportunities for education, you're a feminist - because, newsflash, this doesn't happen everywhere. If you believe it's wrong to abort a pregnancy because the gender of the foetus is female, you're a feminist.
Why didn't I say anything specifically about men up there? Because the sad truth is that still, in this day and age, women are still holding the short straw, when there shouldn't be a short straw, and worst of all when we are all fooled into thinking that gender discrimination is a thing of the past. Women can vote, women can own property, women can go to school and university, women can work, woman can work while having a family, woman can provide for themselves... women can, same as men. What women can't, involves a bunch of things that unfortunately aren't as obviously wrong. Women can't wear short skirts without being taken for sluts; women can't wear tight clothing without being taken for sluts; women can't wear low-cut tops and dresses without being taken for sluts; women can't wear nailpolish without being taken for bimbos [yes, I'm using that old word] or sluts; women can't wear make-up without being taken for bimbos or sluts; women can't go around without make-up and be taken for real women [and I cannot stress enough how MORONIC this is]; women can't have very short hair without being taken for lesbians or anti-men [again, MORONIC]; women can't have long hair without being taken for airheads [-_-]; women can't have a family and work without half the people around them thinking they're selfish; women can't talk to men in social situations without giving the wrong idea to many of them; women can't tell even their loved ones, let alone police, that they've been raped because they'll be accused of lying or of instigating it [as if that absolves the rapist]; women can't reject someone's advances and have that person subsequently not try harder;
and again, a hell-ton of other things that women can't do without being thought of as inferior, not taken seriously, brushed off, taken advantage of, given a hard time, and so on.
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So now I'll go on to some experiences of my own as a woman living in an anti-women world.
- I gained weight about 6 months ago, and haven't felt comfortable enough to wear strappy tops and short skirts. Since I stopped wearing clothes that show more skin than arms, shoulders and legs, I no longer get reactions from men when I'm walking. When I show less skin, I am not viewed and treated as a piece of steak they want to sink their teeth into. I have thus found a way to become effectively invisible to men, both when walking and when out in clubs. And let me be clear: I have a pretty face, very big boobs, a big ass, hips, I wiggle when I walk, and a friendly smile. Tally that up, and even with the big thighs, occasional spots, and curly hair that seems to be a turn-off in my country, I'm attractive [remember this blog is about sincerity; if I were boasting I'd have said something like 'gorgeous']. Even so, I'm ignored because I'm not showing skin. While I enjoy the invisibility this gives me [sitting on my own in my favourite bar sipping a drink and enjoying the music without being annoyed is brilliant], I deplore the implications for the society I live in.
- Whenever I have worn anything showing even the slightest bit of cleavage, or short skirts, I have endured men's eyes following my until I was out of sight, calls of 'aw SABIHA' [equivalent to 'hey gorgeous'; female brain decipher: 'hey meat-I'd-like-to-ram-with-my-dick'; other male brain decipher: 'hey sexy, wow you're hot'], 'aw SEX', 'PSST', 'ejja ha nkellmek' ['come here let me talk to you'; female brain deciphering: 'come here let me stare, cop a feel, and proposition you for sex'; other male brain decipher: 'come here let me try to chat you up while I admire how attractive you are].
- In a group of men and women, all aged in their 20s, all supposed to be friends, one so-called friend still interpreted my talking to him as being interested in him - and I wasn't flirting in even the remotest way.
- Young women often deplore their singledom and say that 'at this rate, I'm going to end up a crazy cat lady'. You will never hear a young man saying anything negative about ending his days single. From this I conclude: a single woman is to be pitied for having a wasted life, a single man is to be toasted for having enjoyed life. Many of the single women I know are happy, vivacious, busy, have several hobbies, travel, and are easily the people I know who most enjoy their lives. The crazy cat ladies I know are not single, were crazy before they got the cats, and have cats not because of a lack of human loved ones but because humans aren't fuzzy, can't purr, and talk back when you don't want them to.
- About half the girls I went to school with are already married at 26, quite a few with children. Half, folks, half. Many of them were girls who wanted to be doctors, lawyers, successful psychologists, business women; yet very few of them are both married/married with kids/mothers and on the path to their dream career.
- 3 women I count among my closest friends were raped, and not by strangers; 1 woman was almost raped; 2 women I know had boyfriends who hit them, and 1 of these women has a scar on her leg where one boyfriend cut her with a knife while he threatened to kill her; almost all my straight female friends and acquaintances have had psychologically and/or verbally abusive boyfriends at some point in time; I had a psychologically abusive boyfriend; and the pathetic fact is that the number of women on this list will only grow as I get older. Even more pathetic? This is the status quo.
- There are very few women in local politics, and most [if not all] of them are past 40, while younger and younger men are getting involved in local politics.
- In local media, when a rape case not involving relatives is reported, the comments section is full of victim-blaming. 'She must have done something', 'She was teasing them, what did she expect', 'She's lying', 'She didn't report it right away so it must have been consensual', 'What was she wearing?'. I am ashamed to say my country is part of the European Union, and that my fellow Maltese think they are up-to-date, civilised, and come from a first world country.
- In local media, when a rape case is reported, the word 'raped' is replaced by the word 'defiled'.
- A local woman spoke at a domestic violence conference about one of her experiences with the police in Malta. She had separated from her husband, who used to beat her horribly, and one night she was woken to shouts from said husband outside. He was holding a shotgun, trying to break the door down, and shouted repeatedly that if he got inside he would kill her. When she called the police, they told her she had to go down to the station to file a report, and then hung up. And no, one of the mobile squads did not show up at any point during the night to at least check on the situation.
- I have given up on talking to my male friends about feminism, women's rights, and domestic violence. The reaction is always a variation of 'Oh come off it, you have the right to vote don't you? You're making a fuss and hating on men'. This leaves me speechless, flabbergasted, and disillusioned.
----
And there you have it. The post that I've been wanting to write all summer, but avoiding at the same time. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Sincerely,
Macs
Sunday 22 September 2013
Monday 9 September 2013
Alternative Ambition: Dancing
I never wanted to be anything lucrative, like a doctor, or a lawyer, or an accountant. In fact I never even wanted to have a desk job, office job, or anything remotely requiring me to sit still for long periods of time. My friends always amaze me because most of them have an aim in mind, a career that they chase with all their being, even going so far as to move to countries that don't speak any of their languages. I don't think I'll ever be able to say how much I admire these people for these things.
I myself never had that kind of ambition. The truth is that the only things I've ever had a passion strong enough to follow are the sort of things that aren't viable in the long run. I wanted to be a ballerina, a singer, an actress, a dancer, a writer, a performer known as an all-rounder because of being great in several different things. These are all things that take a ridiculous amount of time and effort to do anything with, and that put me off for a long time. That and the fact that, in all honesty, I was never particularly good at any of the above, except at writing.
I was a terrible ballerina as a child, my body kept growing and growing and growing which made controlling it rather difficult. When I hit 12 and had my grade 5 ballet exam, I had finally stopped growing and developed my technique so well that everyone expected me to get a Distinction [ie. an A]. Instead I fell flat on my ass during an adage exercise. No, really, I'm not using an expression there - I lost my balance and fell smack on my bottom. I was so mortified and my nerves were so badly shaken that I couldn't do anything right afterwards throughout the exam, and ended up failing. Everyone was shocked. My confidence while dancing ballet never recovered, and I always felt like shit in my ballet lessons afterwards. Add to that the fact that I hit puberty and became boobed and wide-hipped quickly, which is a humongous no-no in a ballerina [or was back then], and you have the death of my ballet dreams.
I turned to jazz dance instead, and enjoyed it tremendously. Unlike ballet, it was actually fun. I could so see myself pulling out all the stops in amazing routines on world-famous stages in the future! Unfortunately, once again my size and shape came under fire. This wasn't blatantly apparent until after 2 years at the same school, when the head and my then-teacher looked at me and congratulated me in front of the whole class on my weight loss. The only reason I lost any weight that summer was that I had been sick with glandular fever/mononucleosis/Epstein-Barr virus for 2 months, 2 weeks of which I spent being unable to eat more than a fistful of food three times a day. It also had to be liquidised. The weight I lost wasn't even fat, because I was by no means chubby; I lost muscle mass, because fever day and night for a month turns you into a decrepit thing with jelly-legs and jelly-arms, unable to walk more than 5 metres without collapsing into a chair. Fun times.
I stopped dancing that same year because I couldn't afford it, which was a terrible shame because I had finally become one of the best in class. But it was a blessing: I escaped the pressure to lose weight, be skinny, be the best, and all the other crap that comes with the most serious of dance training.
Fast forward 4 or 5 years to when my friend Hannah became obsessed with bellydance and convinced me to try it out, and you have the beginning of my ongoing love affair. I began American Tribal Style belly dance, and loved the movements but wished there was more room for creativity, along with moves carried out with the left side of the body [strange as it may sound, ATS, Tribal Improv, and Tribal Fusion almost always work with the right side of the body, and I have no idea why]. Then I started Tribal Improv, which had more combinations to sink my teeth into. TI is great fun and a fantastic challenge to coordination and reflexes, because it's a follow-the-leader style of dance: one person leads, deciding on what moves to use on the spot and indicating by pre-arranged signals [yips, hands flicks, head turns, and more] what comes next so that the rest of the dance troupe knows what moves to perform. The faster the music, the quicker you have to react so that the audience doesn't realise you're not actually doing a full choreography. And nobody notices that we do this, which adds to the fun - we're totally winging it, and it's our secret! We learned and grew together, became perfectly synchronised, put on a couple of shows and took part in the first regular burlesque show on the island. Dancing was good to us, and life became better.
There is a 'but'. The problem with TI is that you need a troupe, and unfortunately life got in the way of ours: our director moved country [the lovely Hannah again!], the girl who took over fell in love and got pregnant [we all joked that she'd have twins if she ever got pregnant; 9 months later she fulfilled our prophecy], another girl moved country, and when I finally took over the classes I had to give it up or risk failing the second year of my BA. So we went our separate dancing ways, which was awful: in any form of bellydance, the people dancing together become like family - that's how it started out after all, with women dancing together while doing chores, and men dancing together while doing their thing, and everybody dancing at weddings [albeit with a lot of self-censoring]. I cannot stress enough how different this is to ballet and jazz, which are dominated by one-upping and competition, creating a tense atmosphere that stops you enjoying yourself to the full when you're dancing, because somewhere inside you're thinking 'I have to be better than the others!'. In bellydance we don't do that. We each revel in what we can do well, applaud each other on the things done well [you should see and hear the reactions in our classes when a bellydancer does a perfect belly roll!], and we all encourage each other when facing a baffling move. I am proud to say that I found the sisters I never had, and to this day even though we no longer dance together and in some cases haven't seen each other in years, we support each other in all we do.
This means that when bellydancing, I associate it with all my bellydancing friends and feel love, which makes me dance with love, which in turn adds an element to the dancing that I have yet to see in other types of dance. This love isn't just about the bond between dancers though. It's also about loving your body and yourself. There is no pressure to be fatless, toned, muscular, as small as possible, and all that crap, in bellydance. Whatever way, shape, or form you have, it's great, because it's your body, your instrument, and you are dancing. Whether you're an apple, an hourglass, a pear, a banana, your shape is perfect. Whether you're huge, or large, or medium, or small, or tiny, your size is perfect. A piano is no better than a flute for being bigger, a violin is no better than a harp for being smaller; they are different instruments and together create complex and beautiful music. Nowadays in fact, I can see that I dance well, because I'm no longer busy worrying about being the thinnest I can't possibly be, or being better than the rest. [There had to be a moral to the story, didn't there.]
And now I'm finally doing one of my favourite styles of bellydance, called Tribal Fusion, a style based on flamenco and bellydance, seasoned with hip-hop and a bunch of other dance forms. This style doesn't use improvisation, so there's a lot more room for creativity than the others I've learned, and that sets me gleefully a-glow.
So I may not be performing at the West End, and I may even have stopped performing locally at all, but I'm dancing and I'm loving every second of it. I've always felt the most alive while dancing, putting my heart and soul into even the tiniest of movements, letting the music take over and becoming part of it, using my head to make my body do beautiful things, and I couldn't ever give it up again. That would be like cutting off a limb.
Sincerely,
Macs
PS. Here are some links for you to see the different bellydance styles I mentioned.
Tribal Fusion:
Thursday 5 September 2013
Things I Hate Thursday
Any of you who have blogs or online journals will 99.9% have heard of the custom 'Things I Love Thursday', a list of things that happen on the relevant Thursday of the week that the person writing the list loves. Today's list, as I think you've guessed, is about things I hate on the Thursday I'm having today.
1. I was late for work.
2. While driving to work I saw a dog lying on a pavement looking dead, exhausted, injured, or asleep with her eyes open. I wanted to stop and check on her but no, I was late for work.
3. Day 3 of period cramps making me uncomfortable throughout the morning whether sitting, standing, or moving in any way.
4. The eyelashes on my lower right eyelid have grown so long they're sticking together, pulling at my eyelid, and generally making me want to rip my eyelashes out.
5. Making a mistake at work and discovering it while on the phone to the business's HSBC representative.
6. Finding out emails I thought were meant to be insulting were actually from people who were being genuinely nice, so I've mistakenly felt insulted, and thought these 2 well-wishers were being snarky and mean, for 2 days.
7. Invoicing idiocy.
8. Feeling the urge for a hot cup of tea thanks to the beautiful storm we had today, and knowing that it would just make me sick because I've suddenly become intolerant to black tea.
9. Being pissed off and frustrated for no reason, and feeling angry at everything and everyone, thus affecting everything I do, despite being a reasonable, rational, logical, intelligent person.
Anyone trying to sympathise with my bad mood will face evisceration in my imagination.
Did I mention I hate today?
Sincerely,
Macs
Sunday 1 September 2013
Of Dreams and Stories...
Every morning I wake up and desperately try to go back to sleep. While sometimes it's because I'm tired and need more sleep, it's most often because I'll have had an intricate and intense dream that I want to go back and finish, because I must know how it ends. This compulsion applies to all books, stories, movies, series and songs that capture my imagination. There is nothing more annoying for the imaginative than a story ending prematurely and without an ending, as it were.
I've had this idea for years now, and the past week I've voiced it several times: if I could hook my brain up to a visual projector and recorder while I sleep, and then sell the results to film companies, I'd be a multi-billionaire. Possibly the quality of cinema would improve drastically, and many film viewers would be left feeling like the ground they were standing on disappeared. The universe would be filled with so much 'what the fuck?!' that it would seep into the collective human subconscious and, probably, make the world implode.
Alright, alright, so that last part was excessive hyperbole [haha, haha!], but you get the point: my dreams [and nightmares] are incredible and awe-inspiring. It's such a shame that I frequently forget them within 10 seconds of waking. Not so with this morning's dream, which so captivated me that I'm working it out as a story.
It's funny how writing hits me. I call it the itch. When it strikes, I feel compelled on all levels of existence to grab something, anything, to record my ideas and get the pictures in my head out. It's kind of like an exorcism, expelling some presence from deep inside, or a purging, but what comes out is a positive thing and only gross if my creativity takes me that way. It's spontaneous, overwhelming, and feels like it just won't - and can't - be denied. Translated into words, my body tells me 'DAMMIT woman get writing now now now now NOW NOW NOW NOW!', varying from a whisper through to a bellow.
My psychiatrist [go on, get over it, I dare you ;) ] said there's a weird connection between mental illness and creativity, and speaking from experience this is true in several ways. Some of the most intense things I've ever written are a result of the ghastly misery I suffered while in cycles of depression. The more acute my feelings, the more poignant my writing becomes. It seems obvious then when I say that antidepressants effectively cut my creativity and imagination from my being. Happily, these old friends of mine only went on holiday, rather than relocating permanently. When I finally reduced my dose of antidepressants significantly, within a week of my body getting used to the low dose my brain suffered a barrage of amazing ideas, beautiful sentences, and stories. I wrote one poem in a frenzy at work one day, and composed another two while driving home on the same day - sadly the latter two are lost to whatever graveyard verse inhabits when it disappears from its author's brain. HOWEVER. The point is that I hadn't been able to write anything creative, anything at all, for 3 years. 3 years folks. That's beyond tragic, especially considering I used to write at least one poem every few weeks from the age of 12 to 19. And weirdly enough, mental illness doesn't just inspire and trigger creativity, it also kills it. Thanks to depression sinking its hideous talons deeper and deeper after 19, I wrote less, and less, and less, until one day I realised I hadn't written anything in 2 years. I can't describe the sadness that realisation caused. It actually is beyond words. And here I am now, cured of a horrible bout of the Evil Sad, able to write once again, and willing.
Sincerely,
Macs
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