Having been a woman now for long enough and looking back, there are two main areas of improvement I would concentrate on if I had to do it again.
Firstly, I would be a lot better at violence. It has been the dialect of homo sapiens since we were two steps away from our primate relative, the chimpanzee. Chimps are savage and calculating and use a show of force, not only as a form of dominance but also as a display of kinship. Everyone understands violence, it has high efficiency as a problem-solving tactic and is quite fun if you do it properly and with consent. I would learn more words in this vocabulary. I would string beautiful and ferocious sentences together and ensure I knew how to inflict whole paragraphs, ranging from mild to terrifying. Sometimes the only way to be heard is to be felt. And if you can’t be fluent, at least learn some pidgin so that more erudite language doesn’t seem as intimidating.
Secondly, I wish I was a slut. I long for a version of me where I experienced my sexual manifestation in the world to be a powerful energy if applied with freedom and conviction. I’d rather have been a sexually adventurous and confident individual, than the shy and withdrawn creature that experienced herself and her genitalia as something to be ashamed of and an object of rape and exploitation.
I would have wielded my pussy like a weapon, a negotiation tactic, a levelling tool and a source of joy and exploration. I would have fucked more people and fucked even more up if I thought it was necessary. Stuff them, screw you, fuck it.
These were my positioning statements at a gender-based violence (GBV) workshop I attended in my invited role as provocateur. My presentation was inspired by my real thoughts on the topic, albeit with the delicious caveat that I have permission to be stimulating.
Blessed/cursed
I am blessed/cursed to have lived through a time and generation where violence was basically our twelfth official language. In my culture, for instance, it was customary to get into pub fights on Fridays. It was a matter of social engagement and advancing your social status.
My people were in charge of the country. We governed with iron fists, Casspirs and an ideology which wrapped such behaviour in a morally justifiable cloak that hung comfortably on many. My father’s generation’s heroes were the Churchills of the world; the Julius Caesars, the Napoleons, and in quiet moments, Adolf Hitler.
Might was right and whoever brandished the biggest guns was deemed the just ‘winner.’ So it was that the US won the Second World War and changed the course of history because it had the biggest bomb. The use of the nuclear weapon was contentious, yet it was sensible to those to whom it made sense and it did put a stop to the war.
About-turn
What a fascinating privilege it is now to see the whole dialogue around power and violence do an about-turn. The statues of Churchill are being torn down and nobody hits each other anymore. It is considered bad. The strong are being tyrannised by the weak, how about that? An overt show of physical or capital advantage makes you a target now, where it used to be the go-to strategy for dominance and assertion. It is quite extraordinary to have lived in world views where both of these positions feel equally sensible or advantageous, depending on the circumstances you find yourself in.
Violence is therefore neither morally ‘right’ nor ‘wrong.’ It is neutral. It can work in your favour, or it can’t. I would much rather be capable of it and understand it. I want to be able to inflict it and withstand it. Living in powerless fear of it does not seem productive. Respect it, certainly. Know your limitations, but resist experiencing yourself as permanent prey without recourse. That is my message to the weak, including ladies.”
With the arrival of weapons, specifically handguns, there might have been a window for women to level the physical playing field. “Abraham Lincoln may have freed all men, but Samuel Colt made them equal.” It did not come down to hand-to-hand combat anymore. You could exert lethal violence from a distance, and there is no physical reason women can’t shoot as well as men. I often wonder what would have happened if women had seized that opportunity and owned that space. It is not too late – we can always start now. Enough of being targets now.
Inadvertently
I am also pondering whether the GBV movement is inadvertently making the problem worse. In the process of victim empowerment, are we not merely empowering women to be victims? The word ‘victim’ is problematic here. It suggests a permanent state. It describes something you are and not something that happened to you. It stems from an expectation that life should be fair and just, which it is not. If we rather orientate ourselves in a world where life is not unfair, but it is uneven, it changes how you think and feel. Instead of fighting for ‘justice’ or the ‘right’ thing, it has helped me to reframe it into a worldview where I have the agency to even out some asymmetries, and see how I get on.
The movement towards gender equality and the fight against GBV is great. I support it since it is a useful tool. This is an unprecedented time in history where the weak have power. It is part of the never-ending jostle to balance the lopsided see-saw of life. I don’t want men to be locked up, castrated, and diminished; rather I want my sisters to become stronger and more resilient. I want them to embrace the tremendous influence of the eroticism that exists in every cross-gender encounter rather than bury the instinct.
In the oft-quoted scenario of the much-maligned construction worker whistling at the ladies walking past, I would like to see the woman imagining herself with quite a few options.
She has a choice to be secretly complimented but act coy. She could overtly acknowledge the gesture with an ‘in your dreams’ gesture or something a bit more rude. If she wants to avoid the complicated social and physical domino effect that any response might have, she can merely ignore it, without so much as a second glance, thought or being offended. If, however, one of the men approaches and comes within arm’s length after a verbal caution you simply shoot him in the face. Or learn the three best ways to kick people in the balls or put pressure on the carotid artery till they pass out (details to be hammered out with your self-defence instructor and legal advisers.)
Options
From the men’s side, they too have options. Movements like #metoo have made a difference, and a game of tit-for-tat as old as Australopithecus Africanus and as sophisticated as Nash’s Game Theory is underway. Nobody wins, nobody loses, everyone plays.
That is the game. We play it with our bodies, our souls, our futures and our past. If violence is a weapon, it is better to understand it and learn how to brandish it. If your vagina can be a coercive tool of carnality, learn as many dialects as you can.
If I ran a finishing school for girls, that would be my mission statement. We have this lovely image of the fighting monks; the serene and evolved male who lives in peace and enlightenment, but can inflict petrifying and effective violence if necessary and for a good cause. My version of that would be the Order of the Fucking Nuns, women who can bring to bear their wombs and their intelligence and physical strength with equal measure and face the world as it is, not as it should be.
But then, I am not the Minister of Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities, I am just a provocateur.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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Photo by Artem Labunsky on Unsplash