It is not that I know what is in their hearts; it is only that I have seen what they do.--vincent--
A long, long time ago negating women as part of humanity was as natural as philosophizing about the Republic to which one belonged. “For men born and educated like our citizens, the only way, in my opinion, of arriving at a right conclusion about the possession and use of women and children is to follow the path on which we originally started, when we said that the men were to be the guardians and watchdogs of the herd” (Plato). Plato, who wrote these words as part of his Republic, clearly identified the “people” who possess wives and children as the men in his utopian civilization. Even in antiquity, women were not people, they were only women.
Through the ages women have struggled against such oppressive attitudes, their crusades manifesting themselves in subtle, yet inexhaustible forms of rebellion. Whether producing as well as or better than male counterparts in the workplace, incorporating their talents in a working government, or taking command in crises, women have stood fast in their quest for equality in all aspects of society. Extraordinary tales have been told of women who have somehow broken the wretched chains of ignorance and achieved greatness. Sadly, however, the achievements of these would be heroines have been seen all too often as a mysterious paranormal happening, a fluke of some sort, that has left a perplexed world standing back in amazement, wondering how mere women could possibly achieve such success. Even in the contemporary world, the notion that women could be much more than men’s possessions, or the keepers of the golden key to the proliferation of humanity, has struck fear and trepidation in the hearts of the “people” around the globe.
The story of Georgia O’Keeffe’s rise to meet the challenge of doubtful male counterparts as told by Joan Didion is one of these extraordinary events. O’Keeffe, a brilliant painter, found making it into the closed cultural society of artists meant appeasing men. Knowing those were the dues she had to pay for success, O’Keeffe, although maintaining her self identity in the grueling process, set to fight the battle that would bring her the success she sought. Didion wrote this of her. “Some women fight and others do not. Like so many successful guerrillas in the war between the sexes, Georgia O’Keeffe seems to have been equipped early with an immutable sense of who she was and a fairly clear understanding that she would be required to prove it” (350). O’Keeffe proved it indeed. Much to the delight of some and astonishment of others, she became one of the most compelling artists of modern times. She did so by fitting into no mold, but her own, and staying on track regardless of the controversy swirling about her.
Even when women, through necessity, were thrust into the workforce the resulting products have been superior in all respects. In such instances, however, after the need for female labor ended, society became a throwback to its original state and the imbedded attitudes that “women are not people, they are only women” reared its ugly head. This was no more apparent than during World War II when “Rosie the Riveter” graced the floors of factories throughout the country in support of our fighting forces abroad. Tragically, the end of hostilities brought with it a government unwilling to stand up and admit that not only were female work teams a success, they also represented an integral part of the war effort, without which the allies' victory would have been but empty words of grandeur. When the Bomb needed to find its target, and the plane had to be constructed to get it there, officials, in dialectical opposition to the moral right that sees all humanity in equal terms, used women like the non-people they were always considered to be. Zoё Tracy Hardy’s words best reflect the outrageous disregard toward the women’s ability to know and understand the magnitude of their task.
If he had asked me whether I would work very hard to help bring this horror into being, knowing it would shorten the war but put the world into jeopardy for all time, how would I have answered? I would have said, “No. With all due respect, sir, how could such a thing make a just end to our just cause?” But the question had never been asked of us. And I stood now, in the warm sun, gripping a splintery fence post, outraged by our final insignificance – all of us who had worked together in absolute trust to the end of the war (132).
As a woman seeking a position in the world today, I too have found the need to run uphill against the storm. I too have volunteered to enter the front lines in the war of the sexes, albeit unintentionally. Since the mid 1980’s, after I took a position with a major metropolitan police force, my life, much akin to the women who built the Enola Gay, has been filled with the Hegelian dialectic. I once stood at the pinnacle of a promising career, only to see it destroyed by the attitude of a “people” who felt threatened by the intrusion of a human being, centuries ago dubbed “woman.” On one side stood the morality and ideology that all peoples of this world are equal in their ability to be of value in society's betterment. On the other, the factual reality of social and ideological structures that deem women a lower class of human beings. In dialectical opposition, one represents the thesis, the other the anti-thesis. No matter who the theorist, whether Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, or the host of others, their designed civilizations, states, and the citizens residing in them have always been conceived and dominated by men.
I have often sat at my desk in contemplation, trying to understand where such supremacy originated, and how it maintained such a grip on the world that even in the 1990’s, society still views women in such antiquated terms. My quest for the answers has led me to the study of historical civilizations where through the ages I learned all societies were born of a philosophical dream. A vision that was endorsed by the kings, princes, and world leaders as a political theory ostensibly based on alleged sound and judicious acumen. Through history, once an ideology has been heralded sound by the ruling powers, even though deceptive, it has been aptly dressed in princely garb, then introduced to the people tasked with its success. The origins of civilizations have historically become the utopian myth in which heads of states proclaim they can, by virtue of the theory’s righteousness, lead the people to the promised land. The plan, however, built of the philosophers’ minds, implemented by the hand of governmental bodies, and hopelessly fed to the citizens has never fulfilled any of the perceived grandiose ends. The broken dreams have only perpetuated themselves in an endless mythological cycle because the “people” who make up the great illusive reclamations from barbarism have only represented a partial segment of the whole. Since the beginning, humanity’s quest to form the perfect society through these philosophical ideals has resulted in little more than a divided abyss, a great quagmire of souls vying for position in the fantasy of a dreamer.
Learning that oppressive attitudes are ingrained in man from the very beginning has only worsened my feeling of entrapment. Although it has been tried time and time again, society cannot, no matter what enforcement actions are used, legislate an attitude, especially when the perspective was carved into the very base upon which society stands. Like Frederick Douglass, who came to hate his enslavement even more when he learned the depths of its origination, I too learned that the way in which women are viewed in today’s society is no less shallow.
As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity (64).
If I have, through learning found the demons of my condition as Douglass did his, then like Douglass, I have reasoned, there surely must be a way to find deliverance. I have often fantasized that perhaps through it all, my pardon has come down to no more than the simple realization that the beast, previously so mysterious and haunting, has reared its ugly head for the last time. For I now know its identity – and I am no longer afraid.
The endurance of Maya Angelou who grew up as an African-American woman in a land of white oppression has also fed my spirit, both as a woman and as a member of a majority smothered by the powerful, but grossly ill advised founding fathers of all the lands. As she listened with disgust to the speaker at her graduation blindly belittle the entire class, Ms Angelou and her classmates, as they had for so long, braced against the onslaught through the memory of a song, so mighty it bound their souls through the millennium. On that day the music trumpeted from their hearts to all those who would hear their voices raised in unity. A majestic simplicity reverberated the sounds of victory and the class of 1940, along with Maya Angelou, found their hope. “We were on top again. As always, again. We survived. The depths had been icy and dark, but now a bright sun spoke to our souls. I was no longer simply a member of a proud graduating class of 1940; I was a proud member of the wonderful, beautiful Negro race” (44).
Alice Walker who learned the beauty of herself and the world existed nowhere else then within her, is another member of the growing number of women who have stepped beyond the horizon we as women have been told is off limits to us. After enduring the tragedy of losing an eye in childhood, her world was shattered. Yet as an adult the simple statement from her daughter who looked beyond the glass prosthesis to say, “Mommy, there’s a world in your eye,” was all the enlightenment she needed to lift her head high and see in the mirror that the world was indeed in her, and had been all along (52).
My hope too has come in unadorned, yet similar sort of way. For me it came astride a motorcycle on which I have traveled the world as an escape from it. From distant, unfamiliar lands, my strength arrived as a surprise, much as the voices raised in song at first surprised Ms Angelou, and the purity of a child’s voice at first startled Ms Walker. Yet, there it was, as I wondered alone and a very long way from home. I remember its vision well.
I descended the southern face of a mountain where I had seen high above the clouds and I felt the chill of the mountain air as my motorcycle banked off the twists and turns of the narrow, rugged hillside road. The drone of the engine was soothing against the sounds of the birds playing adventurously above the aspens and singing gleefully to the sunbeams as they slowly broke open the clouds of a now weary storm. Spring had come to the mountains and I could smell its rebirth with each breath from the bounty of a cleansed mountain breeze. I had ridden these mountains before, but never had I so seen its beauty nor tasted its luscious flavors on my tongue. At that moment it all seemed so unencumbered, so very brilliant, and the surreal, but unconditional embrace of the alpine highlands caressed my very soul. In its safety I remembered how simple it all was. I had just forgotten from where my strength came and I had foolishly disregarded the significance of its fortitude. In vivid clarity, I realized I may not live to see the balance of justice reign over those of us whose lives have been fraught with oppression, but I am nonetheless more the victor for it, if for no other reason than I have refused to be vanquished by it.
Since my ride of renewal, life as I chose to define it has cost me dearly, but today, I often turn towards the hills in which I have touched the face of eternity and I instead remember the rides that took me to places beyond my dreams. At times when the betrayal and treachery seem to have become too much to bear, I just look to my motorcycle, the mountains and the songs they sing for me.
This is my story…
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Works Cited
Plato. “Republic.” Comp. and ed. in Great Books of the Western World. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1988.357.
Didion, Joan. “Georgia O’Keeffee.” Comp. Nancy Comely, et al. Fields of Writing: Readings Across the Disciplines. 4th ed. St. New York: Martins Press, 1994. 348-351.
Hardy, Zoë T. “What Did You Do in the War, Grandma?” Comp. Nancy Comely, et al. Fields of Writing: Readings Across the Disciplines. 4th ed. St. New York: Martins Press, 1994. 125-133.
Douglass, Frederick. “Learning to Read and Write.” Comp. Nancy Comely, et al. Fields of Writing: Readings Across the Disciplines. 4th ed. St. New York: Martins Press, 1994. 62-67.
Angelou, Maya. Graduation.” Comp. Nancy Comely, et al. Fields of Writing: Readings Across the Disciplines. 4th ed. St. New York: Martins Press, 1994. 35-45.
Walker, Alice. “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self.” Comp. Nancy Comely, et al. Fields of Writing: Readings Across the Disciplines. 4th ed. St. New York: Martins Press, 1994. 46-53.
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