EP01: Soft Minds Read Softer Subjects
Understatement to the title: The never-ending debate between Arts and Sciences, Masculinity and Femininity
Also: For the sake of convenience I have divided the article into two. I didn't think beforehand it would go this long. I did, I did think about the brevity of time we all have. I failed. Poor me digress. Also, I beg your pardon I am old school. A little.
Disclaimer: To all the men out there, I am sorry to say that some "isms" are reproduced by you which I understand you can't help but nurture. Don't be mad at me but it's not your fault anymore, take a deep breath. So, when I say only women are the hope of mankind ( in Chandra Talpade's words) I say it without an iota of hesitation whatsoever. Trust me this time you'll blame that we let it fall again, there would be a cassette playing in the back of your mind tuned to the cord that it's not falling it's called saving and if it has fallen it has fallen for the good nonetheless even if you don't say it. I do understand your reasons for withholding, for them you have my heartfelt sympathies. As you always knew I am gullible as a woman you may please excuse me and leave it off at solely on your discretion. Or, if I may dare to humbly request, find the woman in you.
No doubt there has been a transcendental change in terms of shedding the belief in binary oppositions. Life is no longer black and white. It could be gray or purple maybe (Though "Not All '' is a pain in my ass still).
I remember one of my batchmates told me that, "Whatever has taken roots for centuries altogether, only a fool would believe, dies such an easy death. All we could do is move slowly, one step at a time towards life. Not to forget that we'd be living still less because death would always loom around like a ghost."
It all comes back to me as it always does. Well, he was right. Humanity has had a weird fascination towards classifications, categorisations since time immemorial. You get me, it is easy to remember that way, at school. Being wild is just messy or rather say it's so ephemeral. I don't remember, becomes a euphemism for its non-existence. It's dead because it had a very very short life span,I don't care at all.
I may be cynical but I do believe that these ghosts kiss death each day, I do not know what it is, some sort of prolonged CPR or some Tantric hullabaloo but sometimes they do raise up the dead. Kiss of life, you see. I guess, this is what they call the miracle of reincarnation.
No, this is not a deliberate attempt on my part to be unnecessarily cryptic but it's all just so extraordinarily complex and funny at the same time. How else do you want me to explain how ideologies end up becoming ghosts; yes they take up substantial, individual forms and haunt us?
To substantiate such an eerie substantiality I think I should refer to Chandra Talpade Mohanty. She, so beautifully wrote in her article how the binary oppositions between tough masculinity and relatively softer femininity has perpetuated, though indeed in newer forms. ( I know, I know. I can't help it. Feminism is in my bones. I can't afford to be gender neutral. Please don't get me started on the trend of how I should not feel bad, sorry, guilty about clinging to it yet again. Time comes to me in pieces and it's an altogether different issue. To address it, I have got to write too much more and this issue does not occupy centerstage here anyway.)
What's the cause of this novel mutation?
Capitalism, she said.
Indeed, Capitalism okay it doesn't make much difference neo-capitalism has yet again segregated the sexes. Ghosts, remember? Capitalism is the new patriarch and this isn't something new I am telling, there has been so much attestation on it already. If you haven't noticed it then please take my advice, get an eye checkup done immediately.
Should I play a little reel here? Okay, look.
Cool boys with hard math, eh? Their oil slick dexterous hands playing with Gen-Z gadgets suits just right. On the other hand, girls reading Jane Austen. Pretty, isn't it? Same girls directing a movie on the same Jane Austen. Meh. Let me add a little extra cheese, same girls directing an action movie. Action and Girls? What a bummer, what a weird customization! Recession in the industry? Please we'll pay you extra, hire some heroes or princes or whatever to save the damsels or else it wouldn't sell. And mind you, this is all before the movie even hit the charts. Ghosts loom large, told ya.
Long story short, all I mean to say is technology is believed to have got some intrinsic hard stuff that is stigmatized on the notion that it can't fit softer minds. Softer minds of whom, of course women. If it does then it'd still be not at par, only if you get the irony.
Still, you can't deny that technology do thrive on art. Ever seen an application in the making, when it's still an infant? All those white coding algorithms don't look so aesthetic pasted against a gloomy background. I am confident you'll agree with me that humans, for what they are all worth, have this handsome talent of creating magic out of all the rubble.
Certainly, we don't cherish as much that our legs have got equal comparable utility as it's bestowed upon our hands. Do we? Yes, those two intricate branches which hang from your haunches have had gross historical injustice committed to them. On a similar note, as Donne in his sonnets blasmephemised, where the hell is this sacred soul of yours gonna stay if not in the body? I need a roof over my head first okay before I get the luxury of writing about privileged despair.
I mean, oh please. Bite me! Life is not a wooden stair, all your metaphors are pleasing alright but when we're back down to earth we are doomed. Forget about climbing, we have nothing left to stick on to. No, not even a straw. Can't you see?
In case, there's some itch in some ultra smart kid: No, you don't know how to swim past it.
You don't believe me, do you? Let me just fictionalize the facts for you then. There are more number of girls who opt for Humanities than boys for the same. Hear it, there's a huge cry among the Engineering testosterone lads that the sex ratio is skewed. You go ask them about it, don't be so surprised if you get a fickle in the face with a smirk, "Oh, they haven't got the brains for it." Well, you see that's what happens when the sex ratio is skewed. I repeat, to make it clear, it's not their fault anymore.
On some lazy evenings, I flip the pages of gender and the scholars would tell you exactly why it is how it is. But, my dear you would choose to live on your cushiony sofa and pass shallow comments instead of working it out. Why? Because 'Gender Studies' is a soft subject. If you may allow me, I could pass a comment like that too: No, stay away because it makes you dangerously effeminate. Ouch, Burns. Right?
You know the brutal truth, never had women got the time to afford those cushions while they waited empty. Whenever they had, the two didn't talk because she was always busy peeling off the peas, scraping off the dead ends of the beans lest she sat for a little longer than expected, the baby curdled the milk right there where she had been sitting for long.
No, mama don't preach. Justification isn't my area of expertise, I would unashamedly accept that. You may please turn some pages for it yourself if it's getting too hot to handle. But, still I can't help but share a spicy story. Please bear with me.
I still didn't forget these lines from Anne Bradstreet:
"I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits."
Did you know that what is today believed as soft subjects were considered as hard down the lane and undoubtedly only men are capable of having a hard-on. You get it, right? This is how, the merry-go-round wheel of categorisation between what's the most appropriate factor for femaleness and maleness have thrived like an old banyan tree. If you dig up the front veranda of your own house, it is totally possible that you will find its roots there. Men pirates call it treasure or war booty. If the women of the house dare to warn them against it, you may hear enough bickering to have your ears bleed: You silly woman, what do you know? Shut your mouth up. Followed by intermittent sobbing and the same men cocooning them to bed. Well, silly they are and this way the roots have gained enough wisdom to hope that one day they will engulf it all. The house, the cracks. All of it.
~To be continued in EP02
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