Happy Women’s Day

Women’s sentiments are like fragile little butterflies that fly in a moody sky, they are like the tides, the changing seasons, a capricious weather.

Women’s sentiments change at each hour of the day, paving their way between bursts of laughters, uncontrollable eruption of tears and anger, melancholia, tenderness, hysteria, overwhelming emotions, and this, each time our feminine hormone fluctuates and goes wild.

Our ephemeral emotions are always fluttering towards outburst of overwhelming feelings, which are always overflowing from our feminine subconscious due to the accumulation of shame and fear and mistrusts caused by these interminable physical, sexual, and mental abuse, oppressions, pain, hardships, misjudgment, lying, and so much more, that have taken place, and still are happening, in the history of womankind.

And some times, I just can’t help myself from feeling indignant when I think about the conditions of women… and if ever a whatever deity really created us, then, for me, surely it was not out of love, for all of these pain that most of us go through to give birth, and then to lose them in atrocious ways. Then this monthly bleeding, which is painful for some… and of the way that some of us are forced to become a woman when we’re still little girls without breasts; how they look and talk about us when we take the personal decision to remain an unmarried woman or childless, to change gender and name and skin, or even our choice to go through an abortion (educate, and create organisations that can help, support, listen, and advise girls and women with unwanted pregnancy, instead of judging and throwing stones); or even the pressure they put on us when we can’t have children, and the way we need to remain attractive and strong and suffer in silence, tolerate what’s intolerable, for our children, to not lose our home and dignity; and all that’s forbidden to us, of the way that most of them have the right to treat us… thus we repress everything inside, which become hungry things that eat us alive, before dying a slow death out of frustrations and stress, as we morph into mad women, or until they murder us.

And then I think, but most of them, most of us, have been raised by a woman… all of us have been nurtured during nine months deep in the womb of a woman; came out of the vagina or belly bathed in the blood of a woman — that same woman deemed by them as being impure and dirty when menstruating… and I start imagining things that I want to write — about a utopian society for women, just like all of these speculative writers did or does… and mine, would be the right paradise for the womankind… fully emancipated, free to do what they want of their body and their life… the choices will be theirs, but not without the cautionary tales, and knowledge of the consequences that can arise from a particular choice.

And what would have become of us, at least to some of us, if we didn’t have art and writing to sentimentalise these repressed feelings? And how would most of us look like, if ever we didn’t have these mediums of expression to exteriorise what eats us alive from the inside? My guess is, we would surely look like these ugly harpies and witches encrypted in most tales — those whose skins are green, which represent jealousy and envy, and who are always ill-wishing, and committing bad deeds towards others — mad to the point of committing acts of atrocities, infanticides (I’m thinking of the movie our children, based on a real life story😔, and beloved, a fictional story written by Toni Morrison), or else we would all have turned into maleficent, Hera, Kali, Lilith, Medusa, and every other mad, tempestuous, devilish woman described in legends, fiction, and history.

Water and care for a flower and it will bloom in beautiful ways, perfuming and embellishing your house, while bringing enormous joy and pride to you; but trample on that flower, and only will remain a house where grows pain and sadness and unfulfilling dreams, conflicts and aches. Thus, to flourish, women need constant assurance, understanding, and tenderness, just like Bryan Adams sings it so marvellously in the song — ‘Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman’.

The historical records of women are full of strange and shocking artworks and writings created and written by daring, wild women, who knew that to liberate themselves from all of these frustrations and uncomfortableness felt inside, to blossom out and live a fulfilled life, they had to take it out in a sentimental beautiful way, which most of the time were, and still are, perceived by others as being too wild and bizarre and confused to be consumed.

I believe that the emancipation of women starts with the collective feminine purge of these repressed feelings through artistic and writing endeavours, amongst which, automatic journaling, or even writing what weighs on one’s heart on a piece of paper that you destroy afterwards, doodling, or scratching, whatever peaceful mindscapism fits you, from the moment you relieve your heavy heart and overflowing subconscious.

And that’s where the artist Tracy Emin gave us My Bed, bed which was presented in the state that Emin claimed it had been after languishing in it for several days; at the time she was suffering suicidal depression brought on by relationship difficulties… and I think that it’s brave of her to show that vulnerable side of our feminine condition. I wish that I was as daring and courageous as her.

“I also firmly believe that most problems that plague our societies can be overcome by open-minded, understanding, and insightful women.”

Education, whether academic or vocational training ( from the moment we have the freedom to choose what we really want to do), is the key to combat poverty, to empower each other through efficient communication and listening, and to be able to decently sustain oneself financially, for knowledge acquired through most schools helps to achieve a better understanding of the mechanism behind a better society. All our girls need to have the right to go to school, to have a proper education, to learn how to write and read, and think by themselves, so as to help bring about progress in a country. Education also helps to open one’s mind (literature, history&geography, essay writing, art&design, science, sport), thus attain a better understanding of our world.

I also firmly believe that most problems that plague our societies can be overcome by open-minded, understanding, and insightful women, for our ability to listen, and gentle approaching ways, can help remake a more loveable and peaceful world. Our woman’s heart, though most of the time broken, is as vast as the stellar way, and deeper than space itself, dotted with blinking bright stars that we love with same measure; and our sentiments, they diffuse through every objects we make, and skin we love, and places and hearts we cherish dearly.

“Women are not the objects of men, but their tender halves.”

Just yesterday a man killed his wife; they have a little child of only one year old. The accumulation of Mauritian women being killed in horrid circumstances by their tormentors have been on the rise for some years now… domestic violence has always been present in most Mauritian home, but women have always suffered in silence, right up until we started to go to school, have an education, work, discover life. We started to free ourselves from our tormentors, but sadly, too jealous, most demoniacs, they have chosen to take away our lives mercilessly.

Women are not the objects of men, but their tender halves. We can’t continue to be raped and murdered like that, mutilated and scarred for life, live a traumatised and distressing life. All of this needs to stop in one way or the other, and I believe that it’s our own kind, the womankind, that can raise more understanding boys, and more brave girls. I believe that the future of women will be way more different than it is right now… slowly but surely, while always continuing our way with that feminine sentiment, our creative force, and this tender womanly touch.