Currency and Vessels

what kind of world do we want to live in?

A female child or adult is killed every 2.5 days in Canada. A female is killed every week by her male partner. Femicide has existed as long a humans have—from girl infanticide, to honour killings, to domestic murder, to the murder of prostitutes and homeless women to their use as currency in war. Violence against women entertains us, it thrills and excites us on the small and big screens, and has done in story for ages. Female humans don’t exist as actual humans to society, only as a currency and a vessel. Our bodies have sewn together family houses to give birth to great dynasties. Literally, humanity has stripped us of ourselves in order that we serve it. I have in my mind the visual of an adolescent Maria Antonia standing naked in a neutral location between Austria and France as she faces her own remise and becomes Marie Antoinette—the stripping away of everything Austrian and reclothing her as the wife of the future king. Women exist insofar as they promote the interests and validate the identities of men.

In my ancestral culture, Hinduism, women cease to exist once their husbands die—a woman’s entire identity and value is derived from her husband and once he is dead she effectively is, too. Women once walked into their husband’s funeral pyre in a ritual called sati pratha. The British put a stop to the practise and now widows in Indian society live like untouchables, cast-outs of society.

In Canada, women have not even been designated persons under the law for a hundred years. Marital rape was only made illegal in my adulthood—I am 51. When my mother was an abused wife, fleeing her first husband (not my dad), there were no shelters and there was nothing for women fleeing violence. Today in the Lower Mainland where I live, there is only one female-only shelter for women seeking refuge from male violence. The rest of the shelters admit males who identify as women. Women exist to serve and validate men. We always have and we still do.

We are now considered nazis for wanting to have safe spaces away from male humans, however they identify. The same people that want to propagandise and politicise hijab to score woke diversity points call me a nazi when I practise hijab in public toilets and change rooms. That’s hilarious because the nazis would have exterminated me on three grounds: 1. I am female, 2. I am Desi, 3. I am autistic. However because I set a limit that keeps entitled woke bruhs out that makes me a hater. Why? Because Women are blamed for everything. And the world finds the whole thing entertaining.

Men harass, rape, molest, abuse, beat and kill us while the world watches and then invents clever ways to blame us for the weaknesses and offences of men. Psychiatry is one clever way entitled males have come up with, to pathologise the victims of male violence and abuse. Borderline Personality Disorder is a favourite of clinicians who engage in victim blaming masquerading as mental health care. In fact, mental health care has evolved in a giant victim blaming machine, powered by big pharma and DSM dogma. Male entitlement erodes and abuses and then establishes systems to avoid accountability. And, women are blamed.

I've been molested as a little girl and told that I seduced the 21 year old man who preyed on me for months on end—maybe a few years. I've been raped in my sleep many many nights of my 15 year marriage by the man I married. I've been beaten by a male partner in broad daylight in public while no one did a thing. I was kicked in the head by a rabid man on a bus while a bus load of people watched and then told me it was my fault for sitting where I sat on the bus and daring to “talk back”.

I have had a man's hand wrapped around my throat squeezing the air from me; my son stopped his father from killing me the first time. The second time my mention of calling the cops is what saved me—my husband dashed off in fear and the cops arrested him at work. I have been in a car accident that injured me, a crash deliberately caused to scare me by a man who wanted to punish me for “being bad”. It’s never their fault, women are always at fault—these are nice men you see, how could I possibly be so nasty and call them to account for their violent and ugly behaviour? And what a bitch I was for calling the cops on a man who tried to strangle me!

Male entitlement and violence and arrogance killed George Floyd and every other person who was murdered by a cop. It’s all male entitlement supported by a network of entitled men who excuse the behaviour and look the other way rather than force accountability. A self confessed sexual abuser is the POTUS. He’s acted in repugnant ways that clearly violate the spirit of the constitution and his own office. And the entitled men around him excuse the behaviour and do nothing in a massive display of impotence.

We glorify violent men whom we hero worship and vilify any woman who dares to call him out for misogyny. We still tell women how not to get raped and harassed rather than tell men how not to harass and rape. Society seems impotent in the face of male entitlement and violence—why?

The world has a male entitlement and violence problem. Be clear on that—the problem is caused by human beings and not by nebulous theoretical ideals. Men, men do evil and violent things. Men, male humans. Let’s begin giving a fcuk about how male entitlement has infiltrated and infected the systems, institutions and groups in our society. That doesn’t mean engaging misandry and toxic masculinity dogmatic bollocks, because men are also the victims of male entitlement and violence. It means an honest and earnest look at the machinations of the human condition. Ideology is rotting our brains. Postmodernism is a vile cancer. They are borne of arrogance and swaddled in contempt.

What world do we want? What do we stand for? Do we remember the things worth fighting for? What are you grateful for right now, where you are, in this moment? What are your intentions, really? Nothing is really about you, not the way you think it is. And yet you are everything and everything is you. You have the power to transform so much with everything you possess right now in this moment. Pain is a door. Rage is an invitation to yourself. Rise from your ashes. Let go, drop into the ocean and you will see that you were the ocean in a drop all along. Bismillah.

Photo by Mayank Dhanawade on Unsplash