I loathe the attitude of martyrdom I see in some women and in myself. I remember seeing a video of Axl Rose back in the day wearing a tee shirt with the word MARTYR and a slash mark through the word. I wanted one. Women especially have handed down from generation to generation a tendency to martyrdom because they were forced into that position by society for so long. As we all know, men controlled politics and medicine and law and business and schools and churches and the police and the army, and so women had the private domain, but they had to hide their true opinions even there, to use roundabout ways to assert themselves and their decisions about the household and child rearing and finances for the home and family. And it is taking generation upon generation of women realizing the importance of asserting themselves straightforwardly, with the confidence and authority they have earned through years of hard work – hell, simply through being real, live human beings who therefore get a say -- to rid women of this problem of martyrdom.
I think of all the heroines of literature I love who commit suicide: Dido, Antigone, Jocasta, Juliet, Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina, Lily Bart, Bertha Rochester, Hedda Gabler, Edna Pontellier. Why do we have to kill off our heroines, and worse yet, by suicide? I floated the idea of Medea as a feminist character when I taught the play once, and the notion did not sit well with much of the class because she kills her children in her vendetta against her husband, whose new lover she also murders. But she does not commit suicide in the face of being terribly wronged. I remember wondering in that class whether I prefer the women of literature who are fighters and survivors more than the women who choose death over the difficulties of their lives.
I’ve been pleased in recent years to meet some young women in their twenties who “get” these things about the past and their representations in literature. It can be disheartening to read student papers suggesting that feminism is no longer needed and then to read in the newspaper about the issues women are facing from insurance not covering birth control to “slut” shaming to lack of equal pay to mandatory vaginal ultrasounds and on and on. But some young women seem to understand that they don’t feel as good about themselves as they might in a better society. They are able to identify the problems with that society and to explain their positions to people who think feminism is no longer necessary. And they do just that. It’s heartening to me to meet these young women. I am grateful to them for carrying the torch. I want to share a poem by Warsan Shire that one of these students introduced me to. That this poem moves this student demonstrates to me that she understands on a poignant level the problems women face still today, and kudos to Warsan Shire for writing such a beautiful poem:
for women who are “difficult” to love
by Warsan Shire
you are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you
compares you to an impossible highway
to a burning house
says you are blinding him
that he could never leave you
forget you
want anything but you
you dizzy him, you are unbearable
every woman before or after you
is doused in your name
you fill his mouth
his teeth ache with memory of taste
his body just a long shadow seeking yours
but you are always too intense
frightening in the way you want him
unashamed and sacrificial
he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
lives in your head
and you tried to change didn't you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.
Here is a video of Warsan Shire performing the poem: http://vimeo.com/38766162
Here is a link to Shire's book Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth on goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13376363-teaching-my-mother-how-to-give-birth
"I think of all the heroines of literature I love who commit suicide: Dido, Antigone, Jocasta, Juliet, Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, Emma Bovary, Anna Karenina, Lily Bart, Bertha Rochester, Hedda Gabler, Edna Pontellier. Why do we have to kill off our heroines, and worse yet, by suicide?" That is quite a list. I wonder whether men are equal-opportunity self-slaughterers? Ajax, Romeo, Othello, Brutus (but I am relying on memory, notoriously fallible), Willy Loman, assorted characters who come to mind in Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, an idealistic senator in "Advise and Consent" that disturbed me when I was young, and whom am I overlooking? In any case, I totally agree: the path of martyrdom leads to no happy outcome.
Posted by: DL | May 29, 2014 at 05:16 PM
That's a good point, David! The tally is high for male characters too -- and just as haunting.
Posted by: Amanda J. Bradley | May 30, 2014 at 08:30 AM