What's in a word?
What is a woman? I could never relate to that label, as a child or even now as an adult. Woman means so many things, so many things that have nothing to do with being a human being with female body parts. So yes, to me it is just a label. Women are either symbols of specific "qualities", good or bad, or mere objects created for the sole purpose of male entertainment.
How on earth could I relate to that? Even though I consider myself a feminist, it always came more from being someone who always stood up for the underdog than actually relating to my own gender. I never really connected to that word. I've always felt like an alien observing the humans (a psychic once told me that I was reincarnated from another dimension and that my purpose here was to "teach the humans", ha!)
Because in reality there is no such thing as a woman. The way society defines the word, I have never met a woman in my life.
There was that time, that wonderful but brief time, when you were a child and you were whole. You were considered an individual, a precious individual by the world. You had so much potential, the world was yours to explore. You hadn't yet developed that quality that robs you of your humanity...Womanhood.
1 comment:
I think you are right. Such is the case with grand concepts that are collectively rehearsed to seem larger than their diverse histories.
I've long felt awkward about depictions of childhood as any kind of golden age, laced with the tabula rasa metaphor of age-based innocence. There's a point, though, in what you suggest: People do tend to treat children as precious human beings to be nurtured and cared for. Why do we stop treating other people with same nurturing respect when they grow up? - without having to be responsible for the lives of these others, of course.
Post a Comment