Mood Swings:
Almost everything the feminists said was right
By
Amina Elbendary
When we are young we believe we can do anything. The guru of our times, Paulo Coelho, writes in The Alchemist that "Everyone, when they are young, knows what their destiny is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their destiny."
In college in the 1990s we were idealists and -- naturally -- cocky. I for one would argue that any decent person, man or woman, in their hearts believed in feminism and Marxism even if they weren't activists, that these ideals have been discussed ad nauseum and established; that it was time to move on. We mocked the feminists; they were obsessive and frustrated. Nawal El-Saadawi with her snow-white hair was an anachronism. When Hoda El-Sadda came to campus and defiantly declared "I am a feminist" we thought, so what? Where has this woman been the past two decades? Women's lib is antiquated. The battle's been fought and won.
We honestly believed that, unlike our mothers, we were not discriminated against. Some women writers of the 90s generation argue, justly, against the critique of their works as "women's writing" -- theirs is writing like any other. Yet Ahlam, Hanan, Miral and Somaya were hailed, translated and marketed because they are anomalies. Tahani El-Gebali was appointed to the Supreme Constitutional Court because the court wanted to take "a woman" on board. Those who attack her appointment do so because she's a woman. Those who hail her new position do so because she's a woman. In celebrating all these women we cannot deny that we celebrate their gender. This in itself throws into relief the fate of the vast majority who remain uncelebrated. For every woman who puts her pen to paper there are millions who are silent or even illiterate.
For every Tahani El-Gebali there are millions who are disempowered. For every woman who dares, millions give up. They waste opportunities by choosing not to go to college, not to move out, not to study molecular physics, not to take up a career in film, not to take up a career at all, not to pursue graduate studies -- not to realise their independence in the way that ensures them self-fulfillment. It doesn't really make sense for them not to do any of those things. Doing probably makes just as much sense as not. Time and again a voice nags to them that some things are just not for women. Because they are not respected, they are not taken seriously and their decisions are repeatedly overruled by those who 'know better'; not because of any rational order in the universe, not because it really 'makes sense', but simply because of gender. That doesn't make sense. Discrimination isn't rational. And sadly, according to my old definition of decency, many 'good people' are quite indecent.
So when a woman makes it through it is an achievement to be noted. There's no point in heroically trying to downplay the odds against her anymore than there is in glorifying them. And so in fact it is itself a feminist position that the abovementioned women writers strive for: not to be treated differently as women, but equally as women.
The evil beauty of patriarchy is that it is encouraged, upheld and perpetuated by women -- the equivalent to the house nigger in racist systems; women in their seventies and women in their forties, women with no college education and women with doctoral degrees in medicine, women of the jet set and women who sell radish round the corner. It's often women who make sure you toe the conventional moral line and deliver the punishment when you don't conform. It's not coincidental that the wicked witch is always a woman.
The well-meaning will stop and adamantly ask: 'you have been educated, you have your careers.' And, always, 'What more do women want?'
These questions in themselves prove that nothing has changed.
Education and careers are not favours or grants bestowed on women. A mindset that doesn't respect women as equals is discriminatory; it's as simple as that. Equality is either equality or it is something else: discrimination.
Others will argue, rightly so, that women's oppression is part of the oppression of the underprivileged in society in general, because of differences in wealth, religion, age, education, politics -- and sex. This explains but doesn't excuse the oppression of women anymore than it excuses any other form of injustice.
When push comes to shove -- and it always does eventually, no matter how many diplomas a woman has hanging on her wall, how many zeros are in her salary, or by how many multiples of 10 she calculates her age -- a woman hits a glass ceiling so thick it's almost opaque. At some point in her life, every woman has to fight a battle as a woman.
The battle has not been won and nothing can be taken for granted. The rights that are presumed to have become women's are continually repealed. We are still defending the "right to education" and "right to work" in the year 2003. This is a daily battle. If you compromise yourself once, if you stop to negotiate, you will pay the price; a piece of your integrity will be eroded, you will be corrupted. So the feminists have to go on saying what they've been saying for ages, even if they're ridiculed by cocky students, even if their dreams are disappointed and society dismisses them as obsessive, even if intellectuals brand them anachronistic.
There is one way out of the glass bell jar we live under. We simply have to break it. But to do so we must first admit it is there, hanging above us.
Many courageous, daring women break it; they risk the threat of social ostracism and choose not to conform. They stand up to the not-so-mysterious force Coelho talks about and realise their destinies. They are the living proof that you can be yourself and survive.
