"[T]hese were...history's henchmen. Sent to square the books and collect the dues from those who broke its laws. Impelled by feelings that were primal yet paradoxically wholly impersonal. Feelings of contempt born of inchoate, unacknowledged fear--civilization's fear of nature, men's fear of women, power's fear of powerlessness. Man's subliminal urge to destroy what he could neither subdue nor deify."
- Arundhati Roy
I thought this was a really quick, smart way to say something that I've been thinking and writing about a lot lately.
With the oppressive Chapel Hill heat (heat that I've conveniently avoided the past two summers by ducking out on July and August and going to the utterly temperate Moscow and the tolerably toasty Cambridge, MA) and my thus-unbroken habit of sleeping until 8:06 when I need to be out the door by 8:30 for work, I rarely am able to run in daylight and sub-ninety-degree weather. Every once in a while I get frustrated and feel trapped and run after dusk by myself. I make it two or three miles from my house, confident in my abilities, my body, and my mind. But then it gets darker and I acknowledge that I am fifteen or thirty minutes from absolute safety. As impossible as it is to write it, it is consistently at this point that I think of hearing shots the night that Eve was killed and going to crawl in bed with Emily and trembling. It is at this point that I think of getting twenty messages the next day asking if I, fitting the description of Eve that the DTH put out, was still alive. I think of going on my first idiotic after-dark run that spring and ending up in my brother's basement apartment, crying and shaking because I was so appallingly sad for her and her family and for all of the prejudice her murder would perpetuate, and afraid that I would end up dead, and afraid that I would forever be afraid that I would end up dead.
Running in New York and Moscow were much worse--undoable--because of the way men acted. I will leave it at that.
So I go on these runs because I get in moods where I draw dark lines in my mind between women who are warriors and women who are worriers. I decide to be "progressive" or warrior-like or whatever (it's easy to judge myself as being stupid for this and it's never easy to understand how I end up in the place of feeling so oppressed when I live with so many freedoms). I know in my heart the most fearless women consider the risks of the safest situations, strategize, and protect themselves. That it is my obligation as an intelligent person to pay tribute to the women who have been victimized by acting responsibly, meaning to protect my body and my safety even if it means sacrificing basic rights, like the freedom to travel independently in my own home town.
This, of course, is the quotidian plan. The longer term is muddy. There must be a balance between refusing to let fucked behavioral algorithms and patterns take hold--conceding and consenting to the historical act of men "subdueing" women--and respecting their biological roots, or, as Roy puts it, "primal" and "wholly impersonal" "feelings" felt by men and perpetuated by both sexes.
Running in New York and Moscow were much worse--undoable--because of the way men acted. I will leave it at that.
So I go on these runs because I get in moods where I draw dark lines in my mind between women who are warriors and women who are worriers. I decide to be "progressive" or warrior-like or whatever (it's easy to judge myself as being stupid for this and it's never easy to understand how I end up in the place of feeling so oppressed when I live with so many freedoms). I know in my heart the most fearless women consider the risks of the safest situations, strategize, and protect themselves. That it is my obligation as an intelligent person to pay tribute to the women who have been victimized by acting responsibly, meaning to protect my body and my safety even if it means sacrificing basic rights, like the freedom to travel independently in my own home town.
This, of course, is the quotidian plan. The longer term is muddy. There must be a balance between refusing to let fucked behavioral algorithms and patterns take hold--conceding and consenting to the historical act of men "subdueing" women--and respecting their biological roots, or, as Roy puts it, "primal" and "wholly impersonal" "feelings" felt by men and perpetuated by both sexes.
Kaitlin's finally back from Africa. I rejoice! Yesterday went spent some time together and she told me about a Malawian obstetric surgeon she met through an American doula friend. Her vivid description of him was classic effervescent Kaitlin: hand gestures, her wordsrushedtogether, spiced with Shelby "Ooooh lawd!" But then she spoke about him as a surgeon, saying, "he could do a hysterectomy, he could do a cesarean section, and the respect he had for a woman's body and strength was overwhelmingly attractive." Her tone dropped into one of reverence and respect, matching his cited reverence and respect for women, evidently inspired by a beautiful mother who bore and raised eleven children.
This is where Roy's note about deification comes into play: I think for many men, the best men, the primal henchman was long ago suffocated by a faith/faithfulness objective at work. If we give the opposite sex a reason to respect, revere, and deify, they will. I don't think God exists, but I do have reverence for all sorts of god-like things. What I've deified I have no desire to destroy. Just imagine if those men who have the utterly sexy capacity for a passionate understanding of a woman's body and mind could be apologists. Music could entirely change. The fucked algorithms, even grounded in heredity, could fade.*
I see the pursuit of deification as a way to thwart the destructive impulse as an alternative to being subdued as a way to thwart the destructive impulse. I think many men directly fight the henchmen, and many women (feminists, among others) admirably avoid destruction and any desperate attempts at deification or subduedness. I think both are opportunities born of convenient situations. Honestly, as a young white woman who likes to go running alone in nice weather I have already almost entirely limited my options in preventing destruction (i.e., never being in or feeling danger [proximate destruction]) or subdued behavior (compromising any one of those things that I like and want for myself).
The prescription, then, is taking steps regardless of one's sex towards meriting and being generous with deification and understanding and practicing the avoidance of destruction and subdue-ing. Being an apologist for those that already live with compassion and the bravery to be responsible. And maybe waking up at 7:15.
The prescription, then, is taking steps regardless of one's sex towards meriting and being generous with deification and understanding and practicing the avoidance of destruction and subdue-ing. Being an apologist for those that already live with compassion and the bravery to be responsible. And maybe waking up at 7:15.
