Tag: Feminism

Oubliette

I sometimes think you are every bit
as wicked as Germaine says you are.
From those first clawing aches
and heavy clots
that kissed farewell to childish thoughts

to immature scares in the early days
when it was easy to think
using you… was a foregone conclusion.

Was I right to block you out with
pills and latex and fervent prayers?

Gertrude was right when she said
I have more control over my writing
than I do over you.
Yet you are mine;
my flesh, my burden to bear,
I do feel your mystery heavy inside me;
I’ve never seen you and I never will.

Nizar Qabbani says man comes forth from the womb;
it’s nothing to do with ribs
so why do I feel this lack of control?
Of course the irony now is that
as I hurtle towards my middle age
I feel your urgency more than ever
and now, now I can’t answer you and the question,
the question that circulates in my mind
like a constant white noise
is that when I finally need you…
will you yield?

Posted on by nelsonandemma 0

Past my ‘Sell-by-Date’?

I was recently staying with my parents in the UK who were interested to know more about the man I had been seeing for the previous 5 months. I happily regaled them with whatever they wished to know and remember quite clearly one evening saying to them: ‘if this works out it would have been worth staying single for all these years as he’s great’. I think he broke it off a week later over Skype – life loves a bit of irony doesn’t she?

Apart from the usual discussion we had about why it wasn’t going to work (he hates his job and wants to move back to the states – fair enough) two things have stuck out about that afternoon and as the weeks go by it’s those things that have made me more and more irate; more so than being ditched. And those things are the following:

  1. In my distress and disappointment I asked him what he thought I was doing wrong to still be single after all this time. He told me that living in HCMC wasn’t going to help (I would agree that living in an area with a small ex-pat community, a large number of male travellers just wanting a shag and a huge proportion of Vietnamese men who are approximately 3 foot smaller than my giant 5’8 proportions doesn’t bode well). He continued by saying that sleeping with someone too early wasn’t a good idea either. Sorry, what?
  2. He is 30 and I am approaching 36. I was also told that he has time and he didn’t want to waste mine because (obviously) I am over the hump that is the grand old age of 35 hurtling towards middle aged 40 and my eggs are crying out for fertilising. Of course!

I suppose I ought to be comforted by the fact none of these things are actually about my personality, personal hygiene or intelligence…just plain old archaic and frankly irritating double standards and hypocrisy.

I find myself wondering as I wake up alone again as to when did my womb become an issue as to whether a man was willing to make a sacrifice and make the effort to try and stay with me or not?

Not to sound bitter but if Mother Nature had sat me down at the age of 18 and said the following I might have just given up before I began. I imagine the conversation would have gone something like this:

‘Now dear, here are the cards I intend to deal out. You will be on a long term relationship from 20-30 when everyone else is single and then be ditched just before you turn 30 when everyone else is starting to get engaged and/or buying a house together. This will be to free up time so you can then waste 3 years with a guy who cheats on you and likes to retain his powerful alpha male status by slapping your arse in public before you finally tell him to f-off and disappear to the Far East’. All this so that I can then be single for 3 years and ideally pretend I live in a nunnery and not have any sex during my self imposed years of singledom until some wonderful man decides that because I haven’t put out for a while I must be a decent sort that he shall date and not screw over? Brilliant.

Why is that when I met G and we slept together that night I didn’t judge him and was still happy to meet up again based on his personality but not so the other way around? He claimed that this wasn’t the case regarding ‘us’ but just from his experience back in Canada but he was still a ‘thing’ he brought up. We met randomly on a night out when I was feeling tiddly, reckless and just wanted some fun. How was I to know that we were going to hit it off? Who goes out on a night out, meets someone and takes time to think  ‘hmmmm….if I want this one to be my partner, I shall keep my french knickers on regardless of the fact I haven’t had any attention for months and feel like a wizened, invisible and ugly spinster most of the time while my coupled up partners get to have hugs, kisses and sex whenever and wherever they want. I know! I shall play the game and hopefully he will call me, date me and put me out of my misery?’ Maybe some people do but I thought the whole point of feminism was to give me a choice in the matter so that even if I wanted my cock and eat it, I could.

I was surprised and disappointed (again) recently to learn that a good male friend of mine whom I respect  (he is a very intelligent senior leader) who started seeing a woman a few months back felt that he went off his latest squeeze when they slept together on the first night…the chase was gone.

Seriously? Is this seriously something I have to think about? At the age of 36? In 2015? I still have to play stupid games to find a partner and deny myself basic human pleasures? For a while back there I decided to purposely not play games feeling that if a guy was like that he wasn’t the guy for me but as I enter my 3rd year as a singleton while all around me are seemingly engaged, pregnant or otherwise involved…I am starting to want to give up and just join in with the charade and be as false as the guys want me to be.

Just to add insult to injury, when G ditched me I decided that I was going to fulfil all those other ambitions I have seeing as clearly love in the family way just isn’t happening right now. I looked into MA’s and charitable organisations I would like to work for. I was met with websites that actually said  ‘open to all those who are aged 35 and under’. I could have cried. So men don’t want me because I am 36 and neither do the charities I want to work for. So my unused shrivelled up eggs and womb really do define who I am now and not my intelligence, work experience, determination…in fact all those other facets that make me who I am.

Why not tattoo across my forehead ‘I am 36 and past it – only those with children and/or aged 40+ may apply to be my partner; job optional’. Oh but I can’t because then I’d be accused of being a Feminazi or some other ridiculous term.

I’ll go now and hug my cat whilst tightening the screws on my chastity belt lest I remain forever the ‘spinster’.

Posted on by nelsonandemma 0

International Women’s Day

Women’s Day is a BIG THING in Vietnam and this year I took part in events held at Saigon Outcast in District 2. I decided to read the following as a speech even though it was an article I had originally written for Word magazine. 

Recently there have been charming little sayings in Asia that …..‘A hundred girls aren’t worth a single testicle’ (Chaliand 1969) and ‘one boy, that’s something; ten girls, that’s nothing’ (Le Thi Que 1976). Hard to believe then that all the way back in 40CE the Trung sisters (responsible for establishing what is now parts of Hanoi) were already fighting a cause that still rages on today; that of equality in the face of criticism from those all too keen to trot out the ‘Feminazi’ taunt as a defense mechanism.

Being a Feminist does not mean A) you are a necessarily a woman B) you are a misandrist (not sure what that means? Well I bet you know what a misogynist is so work it out) C) in a bad mood at the world in general. As Caitlin Moran pointed out so concisely and clearly in ‘How to be a Woman’: ‘Feminism is just equality. Would a man be allowed to do it? Then so should you.’ Thank the lord then for Vietnamese women such as the Trung sisters who symbolise the struggle for independence in general. In fact, if you are in any doubt about the pivotal part played by women in a country where traditionally they were regulated by ‘dieu’ and meant to be the weak ‘yin’ to the masculine ‘yang’, then just head down to Bui Vien and amongst all the vest wearing travelers you’ll spot shops selling old propaganda posters with heartening slogans such as: “Bao ve va xay du’ng buon lang’ (to protect and build village) emblazoned across images of women holding guns…and children, lending a whole new meaning to the term ‘multi-tasking’.

It is on such a fighting note as this that International Women’s Day takes center stage. Not only was it responsible for kicking off the Russian Revolution back in 1917 but it has evolved to raise awareness of women’s issues throughout the globe. And if you are one of those people reading this tutting and rolling your eyes to the ceiling wondering when women will stop whining then take a minute to ponder some of these statistics: 1 in 5 girls never finish primary school in the developing world; 14 million girls (some as young as 8) were forced into marriage in 2014 and 970,000GDP is the difference in earnings between men and women in the UK Financial sector. Similarly, one of the men involved in the appalling rape and murder of a young woman on a bus in Delhi back in 2012 is currently trying to overthrow his death sentence. He can only demonstrate bewilderment at the ‘fuss’ the rape has caused. In his own words he is documented as saying: ‘A decent girl won’t roam around at nine o’clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy”  and “Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20% of girls are good.” Until these numbers and cultural attitudes improve; there is a continued need for events such as International Women’s Day.

It’s all too easy to focus on what is negative but International Women’s Day and events such as ‘One Billion Rising’ acknowledge that there is much to celebrate. Celebrities such as Thu Minh and Thanh Bui are currently touring the country to raise awareness about the endangered Rhino and Mai Kieu Lien, Chairwoman and CEO of Vietnam Daily, was listed in Forbes ‘top achievers’ in 2013. It would be nice, however, if when you googled ‘Vietnamese Female Success’ more links like these came up rather than ‘How to Date a Vietnamese Beauty’ and others of their dubious ilk.

Even if, in some misty eyed version of the future, it is no longer necessary for institutions like the ‘Little Rose’ to exist, I do hope International Women’s Day continues, even if just to retrieve ‘cunt’ from its position as the ultimate profanity to one that celebrates females instead.

Posted on by nelsonandemma 0