What is a woman?

I say ‘what’ and not ‘who’ because objectification is the path we’ve taken as a society to build gender stereotypes. This afternoon, I asked a friend, jokingly, about whether I qualified as a woman, given the fact that I’m rarely ‘feminine’. Then, I stopped. I realized that unknowingly, I let myself lapse into the norm of femininity. Being one who criticizes the way sexes are put in boxes, I found that I too was a victim of what can only be termed as brainwashing since I was a child.

Asking anyone to state the differences between a man and a woman (setting aside the obvious anatomical separations that one would most likely see) yields painfully predictable adjectives. Understanding, intuitive, gentle, caring, strong, dominant, protective, athletic, analytical. I can confidently leave those there and leave you, the reader, to put them into their typical categories – whether you personally agree with them or not. This is the bread and butter we’ve been brought up with – the girls having been taught how to butter the bread while the boys to eat it.

This isn’t an article about feminism. It’s but one of speculation and unfortunate observation.

Impassioned online activists would be appalled by my passivity, but I stem from a staunch disagreement with most of the sex-related aggression flying around. The fact that women are classified the way they are isn’t wrong. Sure, we are gentle creatures, however, the definition is incomplete - dangling from its poor architecture. With Women’s Day coming up, so are the various empowerment posts and articles – not to mention the angry ones about how there isn’t a Men’s Day for want of equality. The fact that these articles need writing or that there are battles in need of settling lend hand to how far our world is from fundamental equality.

The human race, for all its intelligence, virulence and dominance, is wonderfully diverse. We’ve spent eons putting ourselves on pedestals that balance tactfully on the point of every food pyramid. Why, then, can’t we offer ourselves enough credit to share our adjectives between genders and truly appreciate the multitude of combinations that are born from them to produce billions of inimitable individuals?

I leave here an old poem I once wrote about homosexuality, which, I now sadly find, holds true even in light of this post.

We put people into boxes and pack them away

Label them with thick, black markers

And stow them under strong tape.

Until being boxed up eats at their muscles

Causing their minds to atrophy

And their limbs to ache from cries for freedom.

Until their tired fists pound hard enough

Against the feeble cardboard,

Bogged down by insults and spite

Bogged down by hatred and judgement

By the weight of fear.

Until those pounding fists meet fresh air

Contaminating it with the beating blood

Of someone hungry for love.

Petrichor

The summers are opening acts
The amateurs who are still learning
They are the awkward young peacocks
Beholding a female for the first time
They are the kittens in new homes
And the orphans stepping out into the world
They are the Sophies who have been snatched
And the Goodalls plopped into Gombe
They are the thunder before something gorgeous descends.

When one day I hear
The possible sound of patter
And when my lungs fill with a forgotten sweetness,
I throw my arms out and welcome a dear friend
And wrap her within my every emotion.
I contribute to the damp of the earth
With tears from past memories
I kiss the air that hangs about me
For no better darling have I
And when the skies rumble gruffly
At my longing eyes,
Sending down a barge of affection,
I stand in its love and wiggle my toes
I feel the smile grow through my lips
I quiver in my humbled happiness
And let sink in the cries of the world.

Double-B

It's always easier said than done
To spread 2mm of butter on bun
But it's much easier done than said
To eat up that greasy, heavenly bread.

2015 (I lost count)

I want to be a boulder in the sea

Just toward the waters’ edge.

I want to wait patiently till high tide

For the waving messengers of the world

To come crashing down upon my heated surface

And drench me of my vacant mind.

I want to listen quietly to the tales from lands below and afar

And I want to be soaked

In the sea’s tireless endeavours

To pour into the land

That I unfortunately belong to.