Rattle, rattle
If I were to tell you what it’s like to be a woman, would you care to listen?
In one sentence I will tell you that, being a woman is somewhat similar to the latest kitchen blender that comes with an instruction manual. And if I were to elaborate in a few paragraphs I would say that, from the moment we are born we are seen as either mothers, sisters, aunties, grandmothers, wives.
Each of us come with an instruction manual, mothers must feed children, sister must obey brother. Please flip over for instructions on grandmothers and aunties.
We are defined according to our labels, which is why, when we step outside of the kitchen blender that is our home, we have no label, and therefore, no instruction manual. And what do we do with anything that doesn’t come with an instruction manual? We experiment. We turn it over, break it apart, rattle rattle, whatever we feel like. Why? Because it is nothing. It has no label.
And this is what happens to women when they step out of the house. Ex-per-ee-ments.
The guy with shiny glasses will whistle at her. The bunch of skinny men on the alley will take experimenting to a whole other level. Why? Because she is nothing. She ain’t got no label. Rattle, rattle. Flip her over, rattle rattle. When the non-labeled nothing is suddenly irresponsive, she is chucked in the bin. Just like the latest gadget that suddenly stops working after a being broken apart. And just like the gadget, she is forgotten about, gone with the wind, who gives a damn, she didn’t have a label.
That is what it’s like to be a woman.
Do you care maybe just a little bit now? I will always care. Because before I am my brother’s sister, or before my mother is my father’s wife, she is a human being, I am a human being.
A living, breathing human person, that doesn’t require an instruction manual.
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