In
my youth, I was blessed with a working class family. It was
comprised of strong women of Irish stock, men who were close to the
Earth, and siblings--male and female-- who respected each other. My
brother, father, grandfather and uncles never doubted for a moment
that the women of the clan could accomplish anything they wished,
from lecturing at University to cooking a roast. It was the 50's.
No one had coined a special word for people concerned with women's
issues. I was simply a child, not a Feminist. There were no boxes.
In
the 60's I was schooled in Irish Catholicism as well as the family's
Pagan traditions. I accepted both as normal and viable, depending on
one's personal leanings, and I chose to follow a Goddess based Wiccan
path. No one indicated that it was fey or forbidden to view Divinity
as both Male and Female, and so I embraced my spirituality as
natural. I was a Witch, not a Feminist.
There
were no boxes.
In
the 70's I attended the women's college of the state university. The
term "Feminist" had been born, and women in my collegiate
culture raced to act upon it. I didn't. Others burned their bras; I
really needed mine. I wore underwear. I read the literature of the
Bronte sisters because I liked it. While others interpreted symbols
of menses and female angst in the imagery of red rooms and decorum, I
saw well-behaved people in Victorian decor. Despite an environment
bleeding with the Dialectics of Sex, Virginia Wolf, and Ann Sexton, I
was a scholar, not a Feminist. There were no boxes.
In
the 80's I fell in love and married. I suffered six years of a
failing relationship, and divorced. It was a necessary lesson,
something which helped me define my own limits. To me, it was a
confirmation of my ability to rise above my own errors. It meant I
was human, not a Feminist, and STILL there were no boxes.
It
wasn't until the 90's and middle-age rang together like bell metal
that I finally found them--the boxes . Feminist had alluded to them
for years. Society had been strewing them in my path for decades.
However, I finally experienced them by merely falling outside their
neat boundaries. Ah ha! I said to myself. I finally got it.
It
was a small thing which eventually led to the discovery. Since my
divorce, I had contented myself by establishing my own home, enjoying
the participation of my siblings in my life, and taking comfort from
my friends. Being a product of the 60's, these friends came from a
variety of Life's paths, male and female, gay and straight,
Christian, Pagan and beyond. I was also blessed with close female
friends with whom to share some of the rocks in Life's river.
One,
in particular, was a young, divorced mother of 2 when we met. We
shared many of the same interests, but with decidedly different
approaches. Together we guided her children to adulthood, saw
relationships come and go (including my marriage), and watched the
face and texture of the Craft change, expand, transmute. We became
as sisters walking down the Path, people who could lean against each
other when the road got tough, or when one or both became too jaded
to go any farther.
Then,
one bright Sunday morning, over breakfast, my ex-husband let it drop
that mutual acquaintances had speculated if my friend and I were an
Item.
An Item? I was stunned! He quickly assured me that he had corrected
the notion, then observed that even if I had such compulsions I would
never act upon them. Again, I reeled. Here was my ex-husband, who's
own homosexuality led to the end of our union, calling my
heterosexuality into question. It was an assignment of an identity
not my own-- an assumption of urges foreign to me, by the one person
who should have known better.
It
was then that I saw the boxes. Established by men since the dawn of
Father/God monotheism, held tightly even in the psyches of some gay
men, they are the containers with which half the population defines,
catalogs, and shelves the other half:
WIFE
MOTHER
NUN
WHORE
DYKE
Folks
more eloquent than I have probably researched, documented, explored
and challenged such packaging, and yet they remain: Wife, Mother,
Nun, Whore, Dyke ... and me. What do the boxes mean to me and others
like me?
Having
been married, both my friend and I fitted neatly into the box of
WIFE. Being both divorced, we had officially been drummed out of the
category. As my divorce was predicated on my husband's newly
discovered homosexuality, I was potentially double-damned by the more
righteous segments of the male population. (Surely, if I had been
wife ENOUGH, his identity crisis would not have occurred).
I
have never reproduced. Therefore, the MOTHER box has been sealed to
me (being Mummy to a shih tzu and a foster child obviously doesn't
count.). My friend, being a biological mother, definitely fitted
comfortably into this box while in her 20's and 30's. But then, a
subtle shift began to take place. Once the absolute needs of
nurturing waned (feeding, burping, pampering, girl scouts, lugging to
school, high school prom dress sewing etc.), her place in the MOTHER
box started getting dicey. Mothers of adult children slowly find
themselves displaced by 20-something women with infants at each
breast. If their grown children are male, they may dangle on the
edges of two boxes if widowed, divorced or abandoned: MOTHER and NUN.
On rare occasions, should such mothers dare express sexuality, they
may even become the hybrid MOTHER-WHORE to the horror of their
offspring. Regardless, their place in any specific box is in peril.
Those
women who have taken the veil, in any spiritual tradition, are
definitely secure in the NUN box. Despite age or spiritual path,
(Catholic Nun, Buddhist Renunciant, Vestal Virgin, or miscellaneous),
they are the expressed property of the Divine, forbidden from mortal
men and thus unobtainable. Theirs is a marriage to the All Father
himself, the brides of the Lord, ( and nobody messes with the Alpha
Male). This is a fairly restrictive box, one in which sexuality is
cashed in for a prime crack at the Eternal. Few outside the
spiritual community are deemed members of this exclusive box, with
the exception of widowed mothers, mentioned above.
For
unmarried sexually active women, women with open marriages, sexually
active widows and professional party girls, there is the WHORE box.
This is rather a self explanatory realm, one which males eschew,
except when no other box is available. Suffice it to say that if the
clergy can preach against you from the pulpit, your assignment to
this receptacle is certain.
Lastly,
there is the DYKE box. This is for lesbian or bi-sexual women, or
women who have had no relationship with a man for a specified period
of time. The jury is out on the statute of limitation for this
fallow period. It varies according to each male. The Dyke renders
unnecessary the presence of the male in a sexual partnership. Like
the classical Amazons, they are thus viewed as legitimate prey,
usurpers to be eradicated. Suffice it to say that women who do not
fit into any of the above boxes may fine themselves slipping into the
slot at the top of this particular container. It is here that I've
suddenly found myself, and several other female friends, being
pounded like the proverbial round peg in the square hole.
But
there is another box. Men sense it, but it is hidden from view; like
the face of the Gorgon they fear to look upon it. It is the realm of
mystery, the Pandora's box of all ills...that which is concealed
behind the Priestess's veil. It is a box only women seem able to see
and appreciate. It is the box marked...ALONE.
Alone,
to men, is the world of shadows. Here dwell the women who do not
rely on men to define themselves, satisfy urges or provide financial
support. Alone is not lonely--in fact, it can be a full and rich
place where women, without agendas (emotional, financial, sexual) can
bond and become friends. It is non-restrictive and
non-differentiated. Women from all walks can meet there in peace.
Alone is the magic of the Moon, the mystery of blood flow, the sound
of wild birds, and the taste of the night air. For some men, truly
enlightened, it is a wonder. For the majority it is an enigma, a box
which defies strict definition, the beginning of every witch hunt.
Is
it so surprising? Look carefully at the women who's fates were
sealed in the Great Burning or in our own Salem trials. First to the
pyres or the gallows were the Crones, older women. Women without men
folk. Women earning their keep from the Earth's own cures, or by the
art of Midwifery (thus women who have gone beyond all female boxes to
the very domain of men--the control of the quality of life!). Women
schooling other women in the old, forbidden ways, condemning them
eternally to the Sixth box unless re-defined by a willing male in the
role of Partner (Wife/Mother), Pastor (Nun), Pimp (Whore) or Predator
(Dyke).
The
criteria for the Sixth box is independence of thought. It is the
potential realm of those women escaping from the other 5 boxes and,
therefore, the harborer of reactionaries and (dare I say it?)
Feminists--but not exclusively. In the Sixth box women may be gay or
straight, active or celibate, not driven by only one aspect of their
lives. Thus, the Sixth box is also where the "picky" women
dwell, those who don't accept every sexual advance as a form of
flattery or evaluation of worth.
There
may be several ancient, western social groups which have viewed the
Sixth box as acceptable. In my experience, however, only the Irish
have encouraged it through their concept of "Anam Cara."
Anam Cara is Irish for "soul friend." The Anam Cara was
Father/Mother confessor, the voice of reason, and the echo of one's
own conscience. He or she supported you in crisis of faith and
doubt, shared your secrets and helped you face your fears. The
relationship was uncomplicated by sexual attraction, familial
obligations of the relentless needs of the ego.
Even
in Ireland's golden monastic age, the Anam Cara fulfilled a role.
Unlike the modern concern in Catholic convents that religious might
develop "particular friendships" in lieu of loving mankind
equally, the early monastics were free to discover a soul friend
with whom to share spiritual development. It is the same spiritual
bonding, encouraged in ancient Erin, which falls so heavily suspect
in the modern era. The male promoted mythos survives: women are not
intended to be friends. Men who work together in harmony are a
Society. Women who work together in harmony are a Coven, straight
from the pen of Shakespeare.
And
so, we return to the Sixth box. It is a place against our nature, as
men have explained our nature to us. It is a place unsatisfactory to
those women taught by men to define their desires. It is a box
virtually without lid or walls, yet supportive of individualism. It
is the realm of choice, just as I have chosen through life to be
child-like, Wiccan, scholarly, fallible and, yes, alone. Perhaps at
this “Crone” stage of life, the visions of women, like myself,
are finally clearing, and other round, free-spirited pegs, wedged
girdle high in square receptacles, will begin to wiggle free and join
me in the Sixth box for a bit of conversation, and a sharing of their
unique lives. It is, after all, an all-encompassing experience, and
I find that I couldn't be more contented there, even if I had been a
Feminist all those years.
The
next time your brothers ask if they should set you up with one of
their widowed buddies because you "can't find a man," or
when your father asks, once more, if you're ever going to give him
grandchildren, or if a compassionate waiter asked if you're dining by
yourself because you got "stood up," tell them "Sixth
Box" and leave it at that. If enough of us give this answer to
enough of these compartmentalized questions perhaps, in a generation
or two, men will become frustrated enough to finally abandon attempts
to toe tag and classify women at all...
...and
then there will be no boxes.
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