W.

Women and education. Woman and fiction. Women and work. Women and politics. Women and power. Women and war.

All areas in which women have had a raw deal, and are still trying to claw their way up to the light. Women and the home was of course won long ago, well, not won exactly, but awarded to women as their domain. Their rightful place. That domain has changed beyond recognition, in terms of labour and time, though women have not entirely escaped it. Moreover, I don't think they will, but nor does that mean I'm in agreement with men (and some women) of a bygone era: that this is a woman's place. I don't think that; but I do think it's a bit rich (if you're a woman) to employ a woman to do such tasks for you: freeing yourself yet confining another, when maybe she doesn't want to confined but has no choice. That, to me, is no different to a man feeling (and believing) he's superior to any woman.

Women do that too, to each other. Some of us try to belittle men, also, and so come across as more man than woman. A manly woman. A man's woman. A woman aping man in a patriarchal society. Playing the game.

Do women like each other, though? You'd think I'd have a definitive answer to that (being one), but I don't. Virginia Woolf had more certainty: 'Women are hard on women. Women dislike women.' Is she right, or was she just right then, in 1928? Is that view, her view, out of touch with how women today foster support networks and friendships?

I remain to be convinced that it is. Women, despite the images and testimonies we're all subjected to, don't always stick together. Help fight each other's battles. Promote a cause in women's name. Lend our voice to this, lend our voice to that to raise awareness of inequalities still existing – the pay gap for instance or the career ladder – and the health issues that cut down women, more women than men. Our army, if we were to raise one, an all female one, would be quarrelsome, because an army contains all manner of characters, all manner of personalities – the forceful and the dutiful, as well as the competitive. A band of sisters would be a band of little gangs, pockets of hate and gossip and plotting. Sisterly devotion, a sisterhood, is an image used for publicity purposes: this is what women can achieve! It's not how it is. It's not entirely true, not in my experience of an all girls' school or of some workplaces where the workforce was predominantly female. Even in a nunnery I imagine there's back-biting and the telling of tales. There will always be some sort of disgruntlement in the ranks. Minor issues will be picked and picked over, like a vulture pecking at a corpse.

Is this true of men? If it is, it won't be exactly the same. And men, anyway, have used their, these same, superior notions, against women rather than their own. Men made that their task for many years. Too many years. Some still do. Man trolls, who spew vitriol like some mythical vortex, a Charybdis of the modern age, as they attempt to drag those they bully down, down, down.

And so, just like a woman, I've turned the tables. Hating my own sex to hating the opposite. Hate, though, is too strong a word, for a person who, outwardly, is too docile, too passive, too submissive. Perfect wife material. Of the Stepford kind, though in temperament only and not in appearance. Behind this exterior, however, rage boils; hopes for a Juno to command it, to use her as an Iris: a winged messenger who having delivered the message she was sent with leaves a rainbow in her wake. In my imagination I see Olivia Newton John on skates. Xanadu.

Women can be cruel. To other women. Women are distrustful. Of other women. All women have snakes that twin about them - round their waists, round their arms and wrists, in readiness to tighten and hiss, and strike if need be. Only those with snaky hair have no boundaries, for it's a fight – of self-defence or survival - they're after. A war the enemy – of any gender - may not realise is being waged, until they're engaged in hand to hand and mouth combat. With an Amazonian warrior; a warring cry, a flash of bronze, a flash of steel. With a female MP; stern of mouth and stony gaze, weapons to be feared.

Women, beings of ever changing moods.

Picture credit: Amazon on Horseback, 1897, Franz Stuck (source: WikiArt)

This post was penned in 2019.