I Call Dibs Too

 

So, I've been watching 'Bridgerton' just because I needed a break. I sometimes watch absolute TV vanilla only because I don't really want to think, and just escape into something that doesn't challenge me. 

But then I feel guilty about wasting my time on things that don't enrich me, so more than often, I will tandem view. Watch utter crap and try to watch something intelligent along with it, just because well, I'm a viewing masochist who tries too hard, even if it's watching the 'right' things.

I started a documentary called 'Principles of Pleasure' along with 'Bridgerton'. It was nothing I didn't know. Stuff about women and their anatomy, shame, orgasms, with a little bit of socio political feminist commentary thrown in. All good so far.

The problem happened in watching it along with 'Bridgerton' which is nothing but a fictional Victorian Jane Austen-ish multi cultural inclusive take on 'finding the right match'. 

I do appreciate the fact that Shonda Rimes (of Grey's Anatomy fame) has included Blacks as Aristocrats, Indians as debutantes and even thrown in some talk of gender norms, women questioning patriarchal roles of really needing a man. 

But the loopholes still show. We have Eliose asking an unmarried Kate (who is supposedly a spinster at 26) if she has made peace with not finding a match, to Kate wanting to be just like a widowed Lady Danbury. "But you are alone and happy. Why can't I be too?"

To which Lady Danbury replies, "I was married once. I have lived a life. You haven't."

Having a husband once is akin to living a life. And never having one is being sentenced to moral banishment. When trying to tempt a suitor, one of the girls is told by her Mamma, "Use your fan close to your bosom. Let his eyes go there."

Now there's nothing wrong with tempting a man to your bosom. It's pure evolution. Breasts have always been like a dog whistle to attract men, not that men are dogs. But the whole purpose of displaying your cleavage is not just to snag a husband. It is to time and again look at your own sweet Marvel Avengers and feel good about yourself. 

I juxtaposed this television banality with 'Principles of Pleasure' and realised how far we have really come. In one scene, there's a whole array of women's sex toys that are each displayed and explained carefully. Rabbits, clit stimulators, vibrators, butt plugs. To take women's pleasure as the reins of a man taking a horse and putting it back in her hands. Don't have a man? Have a man but still no sex? You don't need a man to enjoy pleasure and you certainly don't need a man to be in tune with your body. That was the message sent across.

If 200 years ago, a woman was told she could be happy without being married, be happy without a man taking care of her, or not even need a man to have sex, conceive and start a family, how much would they believe? 

I think, we as women take too many things for granted and on face value these days. The right to vote, the right to family planning, the right to work, the right to free speech, the right to abortion, the right to pleasure, the right to ask a man to do the dishes or tell him to fuck off, and most importantly the right to decide what to choose. These are battles fought by our ancestors and it has been a long hard journey. 

If I was born 200 years ago, and had the same personality or thought process I have now, I would probably been burnt at stake or forced off to marry some stranger. 

Even today, luckily I was born in a house where I was never asked where I went, who I went with, what I wore or what I did. My socio economic status, my education, my conditioning and my exposure, including that of my ancestors, has blessed me with a life free of gender inequality or turmoil. There has been harassment and violence because of my gender, but my class had nothing to do with it. My gender yes.

So, if I am a proud woman, standing at the borders of equalism (i won't use the word feminism), trying to decide if I should make a social commentary or not out of playing it safe, it's not because I fear. It is only because I have never found myself lacking in any trait that a man possesses, and I don't see the point in demanding something I have not been denied.

But there are many who have never reached those borders. It is sheer ignorance and apathy on my part to pretend that there has never been a battle for women to fight, just because I have never had to fight it. It's time to enter the territory and share the kingdoms we never made claim for, in the first place. It's time to say it as it is. That's how the world changes, one woman, at a time.

I am woman, I am fearless
I am sexy, I'm divine
I'm unbeatable, I'm creative
Honey, you can get in line
I am feminine, I am masculine
I am anything I want
I can teach you, I can love you
If you got it goin' on 

- Emmy Melli, I am Woman