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Phil John:
HER
(PART ONE)
Eichwalde, October 27th, 2002 - Fragment # 3 - 759 Words
She was a woman. Anyone else would probably just have said she was a girl, due to her age, but that simply wasn't true. She was a woman, and she conveyed that message with every single fraction of her being. There was no ambiguity left, no sign of unfinishedness or weakness that any cave dweller would lovingly take as an excuse for making his sloppy advances; through those, she would look right through. Politely, correctly, but with a sense of finality that would not escape even the limited range of Don Juan's perception. Her mouth might smile, but her dark eyes, which were able to exert the sternest glance, would draw a line, and if that line would be crossed, her mouth would open and she'd set out to deconstruct the opposing other, asking questions too hard to respond to, hurtful because of their truth. Ain't she a woman, I thought the first moment I saw her. But make no mistake about it, the traditional meaning is lost here. You simply cannot apply such dichotomies, she simply wasn't a woman because of not being a man, she was a woman just like that, and she didn't feel the need to make excuses or tolerate certain things just because it was custom to do so. All those stupidest follies, those common analogies using metaphors like round versus edgy, soft versus hard, Venus opposite Mars -- those attempts thrive on a notion of difference that usually attempts to preserve things the way they are. But what if, somehow, someone was a woman just by being one? Not being defined by the looks of men, or by accepting acts of machismo euphemistically referred to as gentlemen-like? She would dress not for men but for her, she would wear that delicate black Chinese gown looking strangely proper from the front view, but with a dangerous slit on the side revealing the entirety of her left leg. She would change her hairdo, she would even think of coloring her perfect red curls green just to make the point of being whoever and whatever she wanted to be, she would even cut it short and dye it black. But she would not be owned by the look, she would make it and own it and even stand above it, not caring about the respect of those who don't even know the meaning of the word, and thus achieve even more respect from those who'd care for her. She couldn't care less about those who wouldn't understand the point, who'd still expect a woman to be a little girl in need of being cared for, in need of protection or payment or lecturing. You would not want to lecture her about something, or even tell her to loosen up to what she'd perceive as injustices and conservative policies aimed at preserving the so-called natural order of things. And why would she, why should she have wanted to cede to the governing myths that would still treat men and women as if directly taken from a Leni Riefenstahl picture, those sexist and dumbifying images used for advertisement, those politicians or clerics who'd say it was normal for a girl to marry and have kids, that this was the default position, the way things were supposed to be, her prime responsibility being to create new human spawn and further the culture and human livestock of the country, and if you'd ask her whether she might want children in the future, she'd perfectly reasonably repose, why would she, what reason would there be for it? And you'd suddenly know about the stupidity of your question, because she was a woman, no birthing machine. She would not make compromises that'd put her back millennia ago into the middle ages known as the twenty-first century, she would not comply nor assimilate, because why should she. Only then, and precisely then, she would be able to actually ask for help one time or another, as we all need to do occasionally; and now she had the possibility to do it on a basis of equality, and the dignity to make it appear not a sign of the eternally so construed weakness of the other sex, but as a sign of strength, a sign that she could cede some authority to a person who'd understand her strength. You see, there was no reason for her to hide or to make herself seem smaller than any other person, because, you know, she was a woman, and most of all, that made her a person.
October 27th / November 21st, 2002 [HTML Version]
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