And Which Side Are You On?...
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Women, Find Your Seats...
I was reading this book called Colonize This! Young Women of Colour on Today's Feminism, an anthology of short pieces by so-called feminists and their accounts on feminism and why and how it defines them, and it occured to me that most so-called feminists are filled with anger, emotional hostility, gender confusion, and misguided rebellion. And instead of feeling empowered or enlightened, i felt uncomfortable, tired even.

First of all, let me ask you, what is feminism to you? What does it represent and how does it affect your life? Why is it a big deal in your life? How is it important in shaping your views about life?

I admit some of the articles were amusing, perhaps because they were cleverly written. But what i could not fathom was why were these women filled to the brim with pent up anger, confusion and an unforgiving manner towards everyone around them? Feminist pundits are supposed to be well-read which makes them chic and cool to me, but i don't see them as liberated via feminism if they are still tugging with them decades of pent up anger baggage. I thought feminism was a liberating knowledge...

Most of these women hate their fathers. Fine. Some feel betrayed by their mothers because their mothers allowed themselves to be submissive, subdued or downtrodden by their men, hence "old school". But these modern women are even more screwed up than their mothers. At least their mothers could blame the unfulfilled life they had on their men, but these so-called educated, liberated women detached themselves from their mothers' mould only to fall into stupid, silly mistakes like contracting HIV in promiscuous sex, married Mr Wrong to spite mother and father, voyaging into lesbianism, and etc. Why do these American Feminists have to consider lesbianism as part of seeking themselves? If homosexuality is such as big deal in Women or Feminist Studies, then how come there aren't any courses called Men's Studies or Masculine Studies?

Also, i feel that it's about time that women of colour stop feeling sorry for themselves and as victims of oppression. The world is not going to change. Marxist's rule is that there will always be the oppressor and the oppressed, so let's just get with the programme, shall we?

Many of these tales spoke of how in feminist conventions, Latin women feel sidelined by black women because they don't have the same shade? Black women argue that their "issues" aren't the same as other "coloured women". I mean, let's face it, what is not white is considered "colour". Isn't that how it started? The binary opposition of how what is not white is The Other and that that's where we all fit in? So why are feminists creating other marginalities within feminists itself? Apparently, the argument today is, each colour (save for white, now they seem to be the ones at peace with themselve) claim to be "different". Each claims to be a more victim than the other... Aren't we supposed to be on one side?

As for the Asian Americans, most of them are too busy trying to not be their traditional mothers by sleeping with as many men as they can (because their mothers only slept with ONE), explore with bi-sexuality (because their mothers only relegated to ONE sex), and put the blame on their mothers for everything that goes wrong in their life (like being single at 36 or being married to Mr Wrong and not fulfilled by 36 because through thick and thin, their mothers stuck by ONE man in her life).

Somehow i feel that some women today are using knowledge on feminism to feel worse about themselves.

So what if i attend one of these conventions and being coloured AND Asian, where the hell am i supposed to sit? I think I'll go and sit with the whities. At least, there, i know where i stand and the racism that might exist is still as clear as black and white... Duh...

Book is edited by Daisy Hernandez amd Bushra Rehman

Postcards From Syireen's Edge
Mood:  hungry
Topic: Of Another Feminist...
"Talking about women in Malaysia, I think you are right. The moment they touch thirty, they'll reach middle age if they're not careful. I think a lot of women just stop living for a few years in their mid to late twentys and simply exist. Unlike you, some just stood stagnant and watched their lives pass by like a B&W movie...I did that. It was like it wasn't me, but watching someone who looked like me just dissapear into nothingness.

I think, we lived based on expectations of others and not for ourselves, and even if we believed that we had lived a full life, we have actually fallen short of all our goals we set as children or teens. At 30, I don't think we set new dreams or seek ways to achieve new things, or even redefine our lives. I think at 30, we rediscover the girl we lost years ago upon embarking our role as young women somewhere at puberty. It's more of self discovery than redefinition of the woman we are. It's sickening that men who claim to be our saviors are truly the most damaging factors in our lives. But the main culprit, are women themselves for allowing shit to happen and blame it on 'the natural flow of life'.

I had a discussion with my hubby about the sickening things that differs gender in the society. While everybody knows how men rely heavily on their women to be complete and happy, they rarely show us any respect or gratitude at home and especially in public. Case in point, I went for my terawikh prayers and the gender separation sickens me to the heart. Me as usual, no shame lah. Upon completing my prayers, I walked out and joined the men to makan-makan. The women waited at the back and waited for the men to start first...what the f**k! I bulldozed my way lah...nothing like the lady like shit they expect from Malay women...anyway - what really amazes me is that the women bitches about their husband like no end will come, while their husbands are all so happily married! Why? Because there is always the condoning of the servant master relationship...I hate that...worst still, this attitude spills over to the general mass of the Malaysian population. I told my husband I wasn't raised to serve and he better know that I hate the community and how they treat their women...he said..."I know". And that was that... I hate that even worst. He acknowledges me, but does nothing to support me. What the hell??? Tell me again, why the f**k do we marry? To legitimize the kids? The sex? God if I knew then what I know now...I'll make all the money, adopt my kids and call on gigolos for really good sex!!!

Though you are right that women are aware that it's no longer about the condoning and succumbing to social constructs, and we are more aware of our potential,...I am afraid the men are the same ignoramus as their forefathers before them. So, the world can't change. I don't think their interest in their own kind or monkeys and horses or whatever else that gets them off has changed their perspective of women's roles as the nurturer and lover. Source of comfort and nothing else. The world, in the end is an oyster only for the men, because expecations for women still differ in many ways. We need to be successful, have a career, be a good mother, wife and daughter and citizen of the god damn world, while men just need to have a good successful career (and, oh...don't forget the passive wife). The sky is the limit, only until you start having the monthly bloody cycle...so, sure we have achieved more since our grandmom, but considering the education and possibilities open to women and shit we have to go through to be at par with our male counterparts...I don't think the male-female relationship have really gotten any better. It's all pretend. At the end of the day...it's still the bloody servant-master relationship...the fighting won't stop. I'm done dreaming...I've waken up a long time ago.

Women, for sure have grown up...Men...I dunno. I still think men are firmly still in the equation...though women now know that men is not the only problem, they're still a problem because they won't let go of the authoritarian role they've enjoyed for a millenium.

In some ways, I think I agree greatly with your opinions about how women should empower themselves, realize and grow up that men is not the only source of our problem, but, realizing that factor will not take us far when men are still stuck in the age old role...regardless if they start to stray towards their own kind or transgender...they will look to women for the nurturing role..."

WOMEN & IDENTITY
Mood:  suave
Topic: Ruminations of a Feminist
In a lecture she gave at the Boston Public Library in 1991, Gloria Steinem said, "Women are a permanent underclass in the United States of America." She said it in accordance to the fact that because of its economic inequity, women in America comprise a third-world nation within the borders of their own developed country.

For non-feminist pundits, the above may be a mouthful, but it doesn't take more than a few extra minutes of careful pondering to understand its underlying meaning: That women create their own marginality.

After 29 years, I recently got married for the second time. Two weeks after our reception, my husband had to relocate to a remote agricultural town called Bemidji in Minnesota, US, where the nearest city was 5 hours away. Prior to the move, i was a workaholic. Since graduate school, i had worked and worked and worked from rank and file til i became a successful editor for a leading magazine. It was all that i knew: writing, magazine production, and hard work.

Being needed at both ends, my superiors and my inferiors, editing, writing, and administering duties within the confines of my office building were the anchors of my life. The feeling of being needed was immense that i was on call 24 hours a day and i worked throughout the holidays. On the Second day of Raya i was back at work. For 2 years i didn't see my relatives and while friends celebrated new year toasting their drinks at clubs, i pounded at the keyboard trying to make the deadlines. After all, readers and sales deadlines do not recognize festive pastimes. They want their goods delivered on time and without hiccups. And that was my entire life in a nutshell. To time and deliver.

In a strange, deranged sort of way, i loved it. I loved the feeling of being important, of being wanted, and of knowing that the significance of the deadline lay in my hands and no other.

A tumour, a cancer scare, and a 4-month marriage and divorce later, i found myself asking, Is this as good as it gets? And so I quit. I packed up my things and never looked back. Five years of hard work dissipated.

Now that I'm happily married with no job, no deadline, but love and time in my hands, i find myself asking another question: What next?

It dawned on me recently that the life of a woman is not a long journey of self-discovery, but a series of cyclic re-invention. Your journey is anything but linear. It's a damning cycle. A series of Tsunami capacity waves that ebbs you in and then throws you out both stronger yet vulnerbale at the same time.

I realised that all those years i was trying so hard to be a career wonder woman, all the while, i was trying not to be like... my mother.

A dedicated housewife who gave up everything to build a family, I grew up inspired to travel her road not taken: that life of career, bosses, of bossing, and of independence.

As disappointed as she was at times with my stressful and what looked to her as a reckless lifestyle, she was silently proud of my achievements. She would cut and keep every article i wrote, proudly showing them to friends and relatives who would see, and sometimes, even convinces herself that i had made the right choice. Until i almost got cancer and my first marriage crumbled before the ink on our papers were dry.

Today, i am a housewife. I dedicated one to boot. I love my husband and for all his sacrifices to be with, and to understand me, i devote my entire life and attention to him. I am happy and i have never been more contented in my life. My mother is over the moon seeing me finally becoming... her.

Yet a part of me often wonders if this is what i am destined to be. Is this the role that i am fullest? It's like a sick form of mental anorexia where no matter how slim you've become, you still think you're fat.

I ask myself, who am I? I am no longer the editor, no longer the writer. I am now a wife, yet why do i feel a sense of unaccomplishment compared to when i was a wreck of an editor? I have achieved everything in love, but why do i feel so hollow career-wise?

I often ask my husband if he finds me as attractive as he did when i was an editor as that was when we met. Do i still exude that sexy, energetic, chaotic aura now as a home-loving, doting, and obedient wife?

Why do women divide themselves in such a way?

I feel that this curse of identity is perhaps, women's biggest tragedy. Our biggest rift within ourselves.

QUESTION: And so how do we, or should we, reduce this marginality?