"If you meet a woman of whatever complexion who sails her life with strength and grace and assurance, talk to her! And what you will find is that there has been a suffering, that at some time she has left herself for hanging dead."
--Ahab’s Wife
And what of women who experience more than "a suffering"? For whom mere existence, much less grace and assurance, is an ongoing daily struggle? What of women who may not "sail" their own lives?
Sunday, May 27th, 2001. I treat myself to a leisurely breakfast at Eklecticafe, to be followed by the annual Moab Arts Festival. Gloriously content with my world, I occupy my stomach with scrambled eggs and toast and my mind with the front section of the Salt Lake Tribune. I don’t read the Tribune often, but in my limited experience it is not a publication you seek out for updates on the state of the world. The "World Briefs" section, more often than not, appears dominated by domestic events (to my mind, Ben Affleck being named one of the year’s Most Eligible Bachelors does not qualify as "world" news). Nonetheless, on this Sunday, page two devotes one-half page to summaries of important world news...outside the U.S. Of the seven news items featured, two in particular stand out:
"Iran: A woman was executed after a court ordered that she be stoned to death for acting in pornographic movies, a newspaper reported Monday. The woman, 35, was partially buried in a hole at Tehran’s Evin prison and stoned to death last Sunday after her conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court, the daily Entekhab said. The woman, who was not identified, denied committing any crime."
"Pakistan: A man slashed the throats of his estranged wife, her mother, and his 4-year-old sister-in-law because he suspected the wife of adultery, police said Monday. Five companions helped the man kill the three with sickles in the latest of so-called honor killings in Pakistan, police said. Officers said they have been unable to capture the suspects in the slayings in Nanakansaheb, 60 miles north of Lahore. Honor killings are rampant in Islamic Pakistan, where men kill women they say have tarnished their honor. A woman’s offense may be sitting down next to a man not a relative or being suspected of extramarital sex."
My stomach nearly returned its breakfast in protest.
These news briefs have saddened me and stayed fresh in my mind over the last few months. Why these in particular "get to me", while the Taliban rolls back the status of women in Afghanistan by hundreds of years, while female circumcision in parts of Africa is not a thing of the past, while female infanticide continues in China, while domestic-violence homicides against women surge in Utah, while Seekhaven is necessary in Moab, I cannot say. Perhaps it was the "uncivilized" means chosen to end these women’s lives–-burial and stoning sanctified and executed by a government; the rage and self-righteousness required to slaughter another human being with what I know to be an agricultural tool. Perhaps it was the graphic mental images brought to mind by these events.
As I ruminated these events, a couple of thoughts struck me. First, Utah is not one of the most progressive states in the union when it comes to women’s equality–promoting it, educating us about it, insuring it. Yet out of seven world news reports on a random Sunday, two of them featured the murder of women. Extrapolating, if we heard about the occurrences in little ole’ Utah, how many other instances of violence against women happened around the world during that week? It is a mind-numbing consideration.
Second, I was strongly affected by the comparison of those women’s lives to my own. How many times in my life have I sat next to a man not my relative–forget a passing smile or a simple greeting? Heaven forbid, I presume that if I chose–or felt compelled by my economic circumstances– I could "act" in a pornographic movie without fear of death.
I take for granted that I am a free agent. I make my own decisions, act according to my own desires, ethical prescriptions and rules of conduct. I vote my own opinions, dress as I please, go where I want, talk to anyone I desire. My body, my mind and my soul are mine to do with as I will. Beyond my own autonomy, I have a say in how others treat me. I have the liberty to feel offended and take action against a lurid glance, an off-colour comment, or unwelcome physical contact with my body. Forget being slaughtered or stoned to death, I expect to be treated equally. I have inalienable rights. Or do I?
I need not look as far from my comfortable world as Iran or Pakistan to find a society in which women may not be considered equal nor respected. To find men who beat, rape, or kill women I need look only to my hometown. Such offenses may not be so primitively carried out as in other parts of the world, but is the manner of such actions really the core issue? Or is it the fact that desire and thought of such violence are acted upon? I think it has more to do with the darker side of our human nature that is not, for whatever reason denied. It has to do with deeper seated beliefs–whether personally- and deviantly-held or ratified by governments,– about one’s place in the world and that of others in relation to it. These proclivities have to do with believing that some of us are more and some of us are less and that somehow, those who are less owe more. It has to do with narrowness of mind and arrogance of spirit, a lack of control and embracing of rage. I can barely begin to collate in my own mind the myriad complexities that may cause such behavior, let alone discuss it here with any sense of competency. Suffice it to say that at least in countries where beating or murdering women is amoral and illegal, if it there was a simple way to stop it I think it would have happened.
Beyond that, if it’s true that we are separated from any one person on the planet by only six other people...then I am right to mourn the lost lives of unknown women who lived so differently and geographically far away from myself. These dead women. What exactly was their crime? Did the 35-year-old Iranian woman act in a pornographic movie? Did she receive a fair trial? If she did act in such a film, was it because of economic necessity? Why, ultimately, was she "punished"? Did it have more to do with maintaining control over people than insuring a certain standard of morality?
How is it that one mere woman in Pakistan can tarnish her husband’s honor? Is he not responsible for it himself? Did the woman really commit adultery? Or was it really about power over another person to abate one’s own insecurity? Does no responsibility for the state of their marriage lie at his feet? And what of the other casualties of his vengeance?
Closer to home, what was so heinous about 44-year-old Laura Lee Schroeder that her husband beat her to death and stowed her in the trunk of the family car this past January? Did she treat him like crap? Even so, why is that grounds for a terminal beating? We are all treated poorly, even betrayed, at one time or another in our lives. That accords no special status. While we don’t condone these actions in our own neck of the woods, they hapen nonetheless. Furthermore, if one is to believe the news, it happens with increasing frequency. According to the Utah Domestic Violence Cabinet Council, the number of people served by shelters tripled between 1997 and 2001. (It’s important to note that statistic includes women and men.)
What exactly would it take for my rights–inalienable though they may seem–to be removed from me? It is probably not an impossibility. For while the ethics of our society currently vilify such behavior, there are people who believe women ought be more controlled and they do not reside solely in the Mid-east or Asia. In this unpredictable world, who knows what may happen in the future? Reading these last few sentences to myself I sound like the Charlton Heston of women’s rights, which is a dismal thought. I don’t intend to be an alarmist. I don’t honestly think there is an imminent threat to the liberties of women in our country (beyond the on-going battle over our right to choose to have an abortion or not).
I think I intend to convey that reading about these women’s fates kindled in me a new appreciation for the freedoms of my life which I take for granted. I should revere them, not because there may be some threat to their continued existence, but simply because they are special and rare on a global scale. What is now our entitlement is someone else’s dream for the future. I think I intend to remind myself–if not you, the reader–that issues of equality and violence are about all of us. They are not just a women’s issue and they comment on the state of our humanity, whether we are impacted directly or not.
Finally I intend to wallow in appreciation of my good fortune. How lucky I am to have the luxury to live freely and without fear. In the course of life’s sufferings I may leave myself "hanging for dead" metaphorically, but (to take a beautiful quotation completely out of context) I need not fear that someone else will do so literally. I may set the course and unfurl the "sail" of my life without circumscription. I hope there comes a time when that is reality for all women.
