Womanhood: A blessing in disguise
The true tale of being a woman in the 21st century.
My sister is a feminist, and she works in the techworld — where still majority of the gender ratio lies heavy on the male side. It’s not to say that US corporations haven’t made efforts to emphasize diversity: they have. Look at Uber or this infographic on gender ratios in Silicon Valley. There’s been progress, don’t get me wrong. Yet, we forget the fundamental reasons why we’re fighting for gender balance.
These companies that spearhead our economy are also obliged to find la créme de la créme, searching for the brightest engineers in the world and the most innovative graduates from Ivy League institutions. And perhaps, could it be that individuals who are interested in software development tend to be males? And is that bad?
Heck, no. Good for them. Go off!
Then, are these feminist coding camps like Kode With Klossy futile? Why is there such a craze or even an infatuation from the Gen-Z population for #genderequality? What’s the point of hundreds of Youtube videos of teenagers yelling in a bullhorn about the lack of representation in Congress compared to Norway or Sweden?
The debate is more nuanced than simply getting the gender ratios and equal wages. Those milestones are crucial. However, there is also a need to understand why we are fighting for what we’re fighting for: facilitate and make the environments equally favorable for both sexes.
Here’s a food for thought: as I acknowledge the limitations to my understanding what my African-American peers go through on a daily basis even if I read a myriad of books on racial prejudice or have conversations with them about what oppression means, I cannot fully understand. I’m not them. I can only imagine and empathize.
All I can do is be the best ally that I can be.
Virginia Woolf, a woman so far ahead of her time, agrees. In her novella, A Room of One’s Own, she presents a counter-intuitive logic that justifies why during until the 19th century, there could not have been groundbreaking discoveries or accomplishments by women. How gender-quotas are important, but it’s the end goal.
Woolf shines light on Judith, the silenced sister of Shakespeare who is deemed “the apple of [her] father’s eye”. Woolf goes to note that she may have even been brighter and wittier than the Bard of Avon himself. However, she argues that Judith would have brought death upon herself because her brilliance would have been too overwhelming for her time — too much even for herself. Not only would Judith have had to face societal criticism, but “her mind must have been strained and her vitality lowered by the need of opposing this, of disproving that” (Woolf, 52). The limitations were not only external — lack of finance, societal norms — but there were internal and personal aspects that women such as guilt, shame, and frustration. She was born to be a writer, yet to actually pursue it, there were far too many obstacles. And to hide under what Pericles calls the “anonymity runs in [a woman’s] blood, she would have felt repressed. And it’s a internal battle for a woman: “the desire to be veiled still possesses them”(Woolf, 50). Even if she broke the glass ceiling, she would have still lost so much — her family and future as a mother.
Woolf is saying that sure, there may have been women born of decent wealth and with an intelligent mind. Yet, if the focus is only on Judith, it all tumbles down. Without understanding the gravity the #MeToo movement and pop-words in the news carry, these pursuits digress from the true intent which is trying to shift society towards a more equal-opportunity for both sexes philosophy. If you don’t remind yourself, it’s dangerous: you easily become a hollow shell pretending to be a unopened oyster.
We ought to focus on how we can uplift our female friends in the workplace, in the classroom and in the theatre. Woolf acknowledges that women tend to tear each other down. We write feminist works from a place of malice and rage. Engrained in our minds is the idea that there are limited spots for women which makes everyone else our competition. And sorry to break it to you, gender quotas isn’t going fix that problem. It’s a shift of the mindset. It’s a shift of our own minds and behavior.
Let’s acknowledge that we are emotional. Let’s acknowledge that we are jealous and ravenous creatures. Women are we! Let’s acknowledge that there is indeed competition. Society isn’t ready yet for full-out equality. So, then how can we, as women, make our environments conducive for women? We acknowledge our weaknesses and be the courageous ones to extend the olive branch. We need to be allies for one another. It’s already hard enough. It’s not you versus the other woman competing for a job at Google. It’s you versus yourself.
The other day, my friend, Julien was watching the new female Marvel movie trailer in the Senior Section. He went: “You have to persuade me to watch it. A female protagonist isn’t enough now.”
He’s completely right. Marvel, you better do right.
