WHAT IS A WOMAN?

WHAT IS A WOMAN?

     "I am no Spring. I am fire's daughter. My unbound hair, become a thousand serpent,fills the air with poison;

In my eyes' desolate heat forest fires burn, a hundred saplings fall to ashes;"

                                                        (-Supata Bhattacharya, Draupadi)

         Hurrah! It's Women's Day! Envelop your Mommy with tons of Roses, bind your wife in a tight embrace, gift a chocolate to your daughter and say-"Happy Women's Day and I Love You!" Then tomorrow,as usual, push her into the seamless abyss of soot and tears then let her rot there till the same day, next year. What is Women's day? Is it a bail given to a culprit who committed the incorrigible crime of accepting domestic drudgery without any vehemence? Is it an off day given to an unpaid labourer who willingly sacrificed her life at the altar of her husband and children? Is it a bonus for a typical woman who is often denied her usual quota of love? The answer can be any of the above. To be more diplomatic - "All of the Above!"

  "When at last I sat down to write

not one letter got written

and my brain was in a fog.

Late at night , when a sleepy hand

groped and hugged ne

'to hell with the poem' I said

and fell asleep.

But it tickled me in a dream,

made me laugh and charmed me."

       (Prathibha Nandakumar, Poem)

      Ofcourse, it is a cliché talking about empowerment and emancipation on Women's Day. I feel like Simome de Beauvoir who in The Second Sex, declared that "Enough ink has flowed over the quarrel about feminism." But when I still find women being treated worthlessly, I perceive an intense urge to say  "We still have to talk about women, their eternal travails and impediments ." Women are attributed several epithets like 'monsters' 'angels' 'femme fatale' etc, by people who  can never know what womanhood is. A woman is no dark continent who is beyond a man's perception. She is no Medusa who would turn a man into Stone. She is just a human who can feel, perceive and experience the world like men. But categorizing all women into the  broad category of "woman" is fallacious. Every woman has her own unique attributes and idiosyncracies which make her stand out from others of her kind.  As Helene Cixous contends it's those differences that make women attractive, than the similarities between them. 

       "Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool

        Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.

The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band

Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand."

               (Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer's Tigers)

     Many a time, women are found craving for the validation of men. This is not because of women's inferiority in competence and intellect, but owing to patriarchy's refusal in granting them their due. Liberation can only be ensued if they talk and act for themselves. Great men have always been misogynistic by nature. The Bard of Avon made his Prince scream  "Frailty , thy name is woman." The greatest logician Aristotle brainstormed and proposed his seminal hypothesis where he says female is characterised by lack of certain qualities and she has a natural defectiveness. In a Phallocentric Society where the male 'self' wields power, the female 'other' would be coerced into being subservient. Therefore, subverting this oppressive patriarchal order becomes a moral responsibility to women. When women are perpetually relegated to the position of 'other', they are invariably being defined in terms of their superior male counterparts. They are being drained of their essence. Eventually a woman becomes a body,sans meaning and spirit. 

"I don't enjoy singing

this trio, fatal and valuable

I will tell the secret to you,

to you, only you.

Come closer,This song

is a cry for help:Help me!"

         (Margaret Atwood, Siren Song)

       Women are alluded to Proletarians in many discourses. But is this allusion feasible? This can only be answered in negative. Women were always denied the hope of Revolution and the resultant Liberation. They are allowed mere restricted Freedom-a sort of Fettered Freedom! They are indoctrinated to be subservient to men.How can women organize an agitation without agency? Being at the receiving end, they lead broken, agonized and frustrated lives. Ever and Anon, Women are given voice and platform to express themselves, when these occasional outbursts become potent enough to destroy the omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient Patriarchy, women are branded 'monstrous' and 'hysteric'. Women never tried to encroach a man's place, they only wanted the space which they rightly deserve. Cixous in her The Laugh of the Medusa, claims that men have done the gravest crime against women by making rift between women. The reason behind this manipulation is Fear...Men fear the subversion of their Phallocentric authority. One can not help but quote the words of Maria Irene Fornes in this context, where she says "if they (women) shall recognize each other, the world will be blown apart." 

      History has always remained "His" story, this entails the necessity of revisioning History. History recounted the story of Medusa but erased the injustice done to her by Poseidon. History denounced Draupadi but resentment for Pandavas? You will have to answer. Bertha's insanity, Catherine's derangement, Heathcliff's callousness are all apparatus employed by 'debilitating' women writers to critique Patriarchal Poetics. Men are always troubled with the very existence of women, which is evident in Euripides' Medea where Jason says "There should be some other way

           for men to produce children. Women would not have to exist at all

           And then humanity would be saved a lot of trouble."

      This is one of the reasons why Feminist Writers exhort women to write. To proclaim their solidarity and to raise their voices against phallogocentric world and come up with their own authentic and unique narratives. Well! What is a woman? A woman is neither an angel nor a queen. She is a human being who should be treated equally by her male counterparts. Equal treatment in every realm of society is what women demand. Nothing more and nothing less...When this dream gets materialized...Every day is a Women's Day!

-Santhwana Thomas