Last night I had a strange, yet moving dream; all in glorious technicolour. (Yes, that’s how we spell ‘colour’ here.)
There was a group of women – of various ages, ethnicities and religious persuasion – standing on a platform. There was a bank of microphones in front so I assumed it was a media situation.
The women were dressed beautifully. There were gorgeous coloured saris, shalwar kameezes of various hues, a dark blue burka, a western business suit, a western frock and someone in some silk Chinese pyjamas. (My apologies to the Asians reading this, but I can’t help what my brain throws up in a dream state.) Several of the women had their head covered: some just had a shawl draped over their head, some had a hajib and, of course, the one in the burka was completely covered except for her eyes. I looked at them all standing there together and I thought, They’re all so beautiful.
Then, one of the ladies spoke. We are all women, she said. We dress differently, we have different coloured skin and we follow different religions. Sometimes our dress tells you what we believe and sometimes it doesn’t. But, we are all women. We are daughters, sisters, aunties, cousins, wives and mothers. We love our children and pray they will grow up happy, healthy and safe. We love our fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins and husbands. Just like you love yours. Below our skins, we have the same bones, muscles, veins and organs.
Then a man walked up onto the platform and began to pour buckets of liquid mud over the women. The audience, including me, shouted out in dismay.
Why do you protest? the spokeswoman said. You do this to us every day – with your cruel words, with your judgemental attitudes, with your lack of compassion and your unkind actions. You beat us. You rape us. You burn us. You sell us into slavery. When we come to you for help, you turn us away.
They cried. I cried. We all knew that in spite of making this stand, the changes we hoped for would take more than our lifetimes to come about. There is a sickness deep in the souls of men. Then there was a loud clap of thunder and a lightning strike close to the house and a terrified Wonder Dog started doing the Riverdance all over my chest.
Not sure where the dream came from because I was reading a book about an alien invasion before I went to sleep. But, I agree with everything that lovely woman said.
So, I’ll keep signing the petitions sent by Amnesty and Change.org and the other organisations that protest on our behalf. I’ll speak up at every opportunity I have. I’ll continue to write to my member of parliament about a fair go for refugees. And, when I meet someone of different race, colour or creed I’ll treat them as they deserve: as a fellow human being.
Your dream sounds more like a vivid nightmare to me. I imagine it is tough to sleep while tackling gender politics. As you point out quite correctly, the inequities between the genders will take more than a few more lifetimes to bring into balance.
The clothing worn by the women in your dream is a topic unto itself. As a non-theist, I see gender roles as generally dictated by the prevailing religion of a culture and religions are, without meaningful exceptions, directed by men. It seems to me that, while a perception of choice may be there, women are really wearing the clothes prescribed for them by the culture in which they live and that culture is steered by the local religious paradigm.
To a large degree, because women have been told what they can wear, who they can be, and what they can do since civilization began, I am not even sure that men even have an idea of who women really are. It is kind of a depressing thought when you think of it that way, half of the world has always been forced to be someone they are not. Maybe in another couple hundred generations we will have things equaled out. Given that our current setup seems to be some weird core behavior of humans, I just aint’ too hopeful.
It occurs to me that I should also add that I am not all that sure either that men are allowed to be what they might naturally be. Our roles as men have certainly been prescribed by others as well for a long time. For me anyway, that is what the general concept of diversity is about, let people be what they inherently are with no one telling them that what they are is wrong. Once we do that for a few generations, we just might find ourselves collectively sane.
I think that sums it up rather nicely, Mr Compton. We’re all human beings, doing our best to get by in this crazy world.
Amen sister! All men and women to be treated with respect and dignity!
Cheers, Jeanette! I’m glad you agree with my subconscious mind. I thought it was strange that the day after I had that dream there was a news report about an Indian woman who was gang raped in her village as punishment for having a relationship with a man from a different caste and a different village. Appalling! The Old Boy’s comment on this blog was, “You and your weird dreams.” As we watched the news report, I said to him, “My dream was prophetic!” 😉