Don’t be afraid to say the F-word

When French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde was chosen to be the managing director of the IMF no news wire missed out on the words “first woman to head the IMF.” In the many interviews she endured following her recruitment she had to answer questions revolving around her marital life rather than her position and what she intended to do with its power. She was described in an article as a “divorcee with two sons,” a description I have yet to read about a man in any position. Answering yet another question about her gender as an IMF director she said, “I honestly think that there should never be too much testosterone in one room.” How else is a woman who comes from the land of the Republican Motherhood supposed to respond?

It is instances like these that remind us of what feminism allowed us to forget. Still, as women are reaching once unimaginable heights they are haunted by thoughts that question their abilities. At one point in time, women's rights were important, fighting for them was important, gaining them was a must, that point in time has passed. The urgency has slowed down, the priorities have been blurred and the word feminism has developed many faces and lost its way in the crowded world of activism.

The word feminism has become synonymous with the idea of man-hating when in fact it has more to do with women than men. The idea was to become equal to what man has achieved and never to downgrade man's role. This misconception has led to the demise of the word, no longer does any woman want to be labelled a feminist for fear of being accused of hating men.

When asked if she is a feminist the American pop singer Beyoncé Knowles said she didn't feel the need to define what she is. This is coming from a singer who brought us a long list of chart-topping girl power anthems such as Independent Women, Survivor, If I Were a Boy, Single Ladies and Run the World. She is also a volunteer and supporter of the CARE organisation that works to empower women around the world, which makes it all the more baffling that she would fear to be called a feminist.

If there should be a reason for this label to disappear from our vocabulary it must not be because of a negative connotation but because there should not be only a segment of the female race that believes in their rights.

Every woman, hell, every man should be a feminist, that is the only way to render this word obsolete.

Throughout history women have fought for one right after another, right to education and the right to be viewed equally by the scrutinising eyes of the law. They fought so the world would understand that theirs is a global issue, one affecting half the planet's population.

Women thinkers, philosophers and activists like Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir and Sylvia Plath have written extensively on the subject of women's rights believing that only a woman can truly portray the struggle of her race. Books like Woolf's A Room of One's Own and de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, which as far as I'm considered, should be read by men before women, caused an explosion of female enlightenment and gave voice to issues rendered dumb by years of injustice.

Yet as we see less and less women embracing the cause, does that mean we have attained equality and that we no longer need the 'dreaded' feminist?

Equality might have been attained in some parts of the world, yet there are many segments of the world still subjugating women and young girls to all kinds of cruelty and injustice for no other reason than their gender. The irony cannot be escaped when a glass ceiling shatters in one part of the world and a girl is being denied education and forced into marriage in another. This imbalance makes it all the more necessary to speak up for those of us who continue to be silenced by ignorance and fear.

Feminism is not dead. Feminism has altered itself, morphing into a more entertaining entity, in order to survive in a world where it has become easier to digest an issue if it came with its own music video.

For women's rights to exist today the idea of feminism has to be subtly reintroduced back into the world. Therefore, for women's rights to be addressed we must sing about female solidarity instead of rallying for it, and if this generation would rather rename it 'Bootylicious' instead, then so be it.

But no matter what we do, we must not belittle the struggle of superwomen, who championed our rights at times when the idea of such equality was unfathomable. Names like Gloria Steinem and Huda Shaarawi must be taught not forgotten, for without their daily battles the world would not have had a Beyoncé today.

This article was published in The Gulf Today Newspaper on 25th Sep., 2011.

Beneath The River Ous

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to have purchased a first-edition copy of Virginia Woolf’s novel The Voyage Out. It need not be said that I am a fan of Virginia Woolf and an avid collector of her works. Holding the book in my hands right now, feeling its frayed spine, flipping ever so gently through its aging pages and taking in its musty smell I am slowly slipping back in time to the events of this very day sixty-eight years ago, when one of our greatest literary minds chose to drown itself in the cold waters of the River Ous.

Virginia Woolf, daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, wife of Leonard Woolf, passionate friend of Vita-Sackville-West, avid feminist, one of the most influential writers of the modernist movement and founder of the Hogarth Press, would not allow her madness to swallow her whole. After penning two letters, one to her idolizing husband Leonard and the other to her beloved sister Vanessa she walked out of her house, filled her pockets with stones and gave herself to the waters. Virginia Woolf’s limp, lifeless body was to be found eighteen days later by a group of children.

Virginia Woolf had an overzealous habit of jotting down every detail of her day; she insisted that every woman should write about her day for there is a treasure in every movement. She believed that every part of the day need not be wasted or forgotten and she was right. Owing to this almost obsessive habit, Virginia left behind a life-time worth of diary entries that were later compiled into five volumes which now serve as out gateway to her life, love and madness.
This wealth of detail led to the analysis and over-analysis of every aspect of Virginia’s life. Critics devoured Woolf’s diaries and personal letters hoping to make rhyme and reason of everything she did, everything she said and every word she penned. They dissected every part of her life from her mental state to her eating habits. If Virginia Woolf were alive today the critics would be her paparazzi and every detail of her life would be published in tabloids and posted on websites.

To the literary world Virginia Woolf’s life and loves have come to over-shadow her work. She was a devoted writer who lived her entire life for the craft. She was an artist forever seeking perfection. She dwelled on every sentence, in the confinement of her room among tons of scrapped papers; she recited each one out loud. One of which is the opening sentence in her novel Mrs. Dalloway: “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself”. A single sentence such as this one may have taken days from her life, years from her sanity and brought her ever so closer to the River Ous.

Everything that is to be said about Virginia Woolf has been said. Many have criticized her personality and neglected her work, many poured over her work and neglected her person, inspirations and passion. Nevertheless, all of them agreed on one thing, that Virginia Woolf had an undeniable effect on the literary world and an uncompromising hold on every person who has read any of her works. She has laid the foundation for the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique that many have failed to emulate. Although she is categorized as a feminist (what that word means nowadays I have no idea) she believed in ‘fortifying’ the difference between men and women and in blurring the lines that separate them, for only then will each come into his own.

Virginia was convinced that the mind should be androgynous in order to be able to write freely and passionately. Her ultimate aim in life was to express the necessity for female writers to find a sentence, just a single sentence that describes them, and not succumb to borrowing the male sentence that they have been exposed to since the creation of the word. Virginia searched for this very sentence all her life, who knows maybe she found it on this day sixty-eight years ago beneath the icy waters of the River Ous.

This piece was published in The Gulf Today newspaper on March 28, 2009. On Virginia Woolf's 68th death anniversary.