International Women's Day? Getting to Know the Extraordinary "Ordinary" Us

In the middle of a three hour argument, we reached this conversation:

Me: Would you just shut up and listen to me?

Him: If you insist that I am every bad man in the world, I will play so today to meet the discription and I am not going to let you talk when you are upset.

Me: Fine! Then I am not upset, can I talk now?

Him: If you are not upset, SING! Prove it and sing.

Me: I don’t know any songs, I forgot them all.

Of all the things he bedazzeled me with in the past year, the one thing I never admitted out loud was how fastinated I am with his ability of memorizing lyrics. Every single time we drove and he started singing along with the radio, I struggled to do the same with no use.

I recall those days when I was a high school student and music was my only home. In the 9th grade, we had a teacher who tried to invite me to a theology class in the mosque where her father was the Imam. I agreed at the beginning  as all the requirments were fine by me starting with what I was required to dress and ending with stuff she described as the keys to heaven, which did not seem difficult at all as I was already doing them. The one thing that kept me away is how she dedicated time in each class to keep us away from music. To my childish pure soul back then, anything can contradict with faith except music. I was willing to be deprived from anything but music.

Years later, I found out that what stole my amazing ability to memorize lyrics was not faith or religion classes. My daily struggles did.

It striked me really hard when he said that I have not been able to express anything at all but anger lately. In her novel   “ Sing You Home“, Jodi Picoult says: “You know how I get angry sometimes? That's because it's the only way I can still feel. And I need to test myself, to make sure I'm really here.”

I grew up fighting for the “ Power Storage“ , which was mostly rain, coffee, ice cream, cotton candy, books and music. Those are what protected me throughout the years from compromising what I really want out of life. It was never bitter anger until lately.

When I was 17, my English teacher sat back enjoying a student’s presentation on how belly dance must be one of every wife’s duties. Everyone was laughing and I was very angry and yet managed to express my point without carrying my anger home and ruining my rock/reading hour before I had ice-cream and watched my favorite sitcom.

Through the years, I got so busy growing a thick skin. Yes, my skin became thick enough to contain layers that would prevent me from falling apart when disappointments, betrayals, sexism, patriarchy, social injustice, death, wars, inner battles, bad health, harassment, abuse, heart breaks, brutal work deadlines, judgments hit me right under the belt in this continuous boxing tournament called: Life. The package that grew along with the thick skin was something I have not been aware of until today.

My friend told me that we have become so accustomed to bitterness that we think it is normal. On the way back from her house, the past 5 years of my life ran through my head. Since I was a senior in college and faced the reality of my different choices, I received one slap after another and I used up my whole storage of rain, coffee, ice cream, cotton candy, books and music. So I forgot all the lyrics. I am now left with the thick skin, but is it alone enough? Is anger really the only way for me to exist. Let it be! But when it turns into bitterness, then there has to be an intervention.

Today, my friend Tanya wrote to me from Sweden greeting me on the International Day of Women:

For me the International Women's Day has at times been something I have cared much for, when I was a teenager and struggeling against the pressure I felt from my society to be the "perfect Western woman" - expected to be happy, caring, successfull - all the time, expected to be individualistic, to be special, and a great friend, and family member and also at school good looking, sexually liberated and yet not too liberated to be this or that, etc etc etc. And when I got involved here at women's shelters and gave therapy to battered and raped women. and then i did campaigns against the objectification of women's bodies etc. But then with years I have more and more felt that the day is a day when i need to step back and learn and let others lead. and talk. My role these days is as a listener, student of women.

 

I saw her message right after I wrote to  “His“ mother whose two sons were taken away from her with a court order after she asked for a divorce in a simple manifestation of this eternal choice women are put to make: “Either Liberty or agony” and when we choose liberty, there comes suffrage as well and then we are put to make a choice between agony and agony. This year, and coincidentally right before Tania wrote to me, I decided not to protest or go to conferences on women’s rights but to simply write to the women who touched me deeply this year. One of those women is me.   

Dear Me,

I am sorry you had to go through so much, but it all made you and don’t we love you enough to moisturize the thick skin with its beholder’s beauty so that it does not crack ? I am not asking you to forget, you cannot let go of what liberated you and in this case it’s been pain. But isn't it only fair that after you claimed the street that you enjoy that and simply walk more? Isn't it only fair that you have overcome body image media impositions and stereotypes that you let him love you that way you have learned yourself without feeding him fears he cannot even relate too, because believe it or not there are men who went through our same struggles of beauty definitions and they do get it? Isn't it only fair to write in that newspaper column and that blog you fought so hard to get some space in under this time of patriarchal political polarization that would not let a woman like you exist and yet you did/do and will? Why did you stop writing? Isn't it only fair that you filter the anger to lose the bitterness and keep the anger the provokes the one thing you master the most: Taking actions? Isn't it only fair that you get to know the “You” that everyone around looks up to? Isn't it only fair that you enjoy the job you worked so hard to build your name at in spite of the taboos and the dos and don’ts ? Isn't it only fair that you fill up the storage with rain, coffee, ice cream, cotton candy, books and music because tough days are yet to come? Isn't it only fair that after your battle to get to know what you want, you enjoy them after getting them?

This year, I did not go for public events. In fact, I did not even watch the news all day. This year, on the International Women’s Day, I wrote to extraordinary  “Ordinary” women who do not do public speaking or attend gender workshops and maybe never attend March 8^th. protests. I wrote to my mom recognizing her daily battles between both of her paid and unpaid jobs knowing that the second is always dismayed as invisible effort simply because these are the duties of 30 years of being taken for granted. I wrote to “His” mom who cannot sing happy birthday to her son who was born on the International Day of Women but was taken away from her by a father who used a court that is probably celebrating this day with a fancy dinner in some sort of an elite club or conference. I wrote to my best friends who strive each and  every day between inner and outer battles to simply BE. This year, I wrote to me while listening to the music I once fought to keep. This year my one and only battle would be not lost myself so that I can have enough of it to fight for more because apparently the battles have not even started.