Third week: Women, is necessary to define them?

Defining women has become an issue, especially, because of men's domain over centuries. Still, there are countries where men have unmeasured control over women. Recently we have known of the strict power of the Taliban over women as shown below:

Women in this type of culture or power are imprisoned in their own houses and is very hard to escape if they want to be in places where they can be more free at least to express themselves.

Even in this overcontrolled domain, some are trying to protest and express themselves, taking great risks. Some are thinking if it would be a good thing to bring a newborn into that society, especially if it is a woman. Some others want to escape, but it is very hard for them to achieve it.

But why is this related to the meaning of being a woman? If we take the above case, one of the reasons women are prohibited from showing themselves is to prevent temptation. And this has to be with the body.

Since ancient times, women have been considered to be property, a sensual symbol, a sacred symbol (who becomes property of whom profaned it, that is a contradiction), and a mother. However, women have also tried to gain some power over themselves, maybe in undirected or revolutionary ways. But there are few examples of it in the past history. Some of them were burned, some of them were judged, and some of them were killed, rapped, sold, imprisoned, or damaged in any way. Usually, the relation of power between men and women also came from religion, not only monotheistic religion but other beliefs. Usually, women are connected to care jobs because of their bodies' ability to have children and be mothers. So, a woman who doesn´t want children is also considered unnatural. Even when women can work (in most countries) nowadays, these care works are perpetuating their opportunities to have a profession and gain money or a pension. For example, this report shows the issue in Colombia: Reportaje Mutante.org: cuΓ‘l es la relacion entre la pobreza de las mujeres en Colombia y las tareas de cuidado Where most of this labors are not paid, or well paid.

Feminism, for most of women, has become a belief, a tool, something to fight for, an exit, or something to rely on. Most of the people who are against Feminism are very conservative in their thinking of that is the role of women in society. But I think the power of Feminism is to give possibilities and guarantees for a woman to have power not only over their lives but over their bodies. In the feminist movement, there are many branches or ways of thinking, and maybe some points are common, but others are still an issue among feminists. 

I like the movie The Mona Lisa Smile because the main character, who is a feminist teacher in the 50s in a ladies' school, also learns that feminism is about letting the woman decide about her life. She learned this because her best student decided to raise her family and not go to law school and that was ok too. That was her wish. That was her decision. She knew she was intelligent and that she could make it, but she wanted another thing. The main character learned to accept that. 

I also like this feminist influencer, and here is a video she makes about understanding this thing of the feminism movement:


Defining what a woman is is hard because its meaning is constantly changing. The first concept came from men and what we should be. Now, women are trying to open the concept, to make it their own, and transgender women have also participated in this matter. This gives us a lot to think about, and that's good: to be open. Maybe it would never be an absolute definition, and that´s good, too. 

Is necessary? mmm maybe; and maybe we must understand that the definition could be different socially or culturally than in a physical way.

 

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