the untold feminine

[ah, women. they make the highs higher and the lows more frequent…- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche]

It's an odd sensation, watching your feelings slowly change over time, seeing your strong positions erode as events batter down on them. My conversation with one of my aunts recently made me think parallel on something that’s been nibbling at my mind.

She was the one who initiated me into the wonderful world of Malayalam literature populated with authors who seduces the reader into a world where they play around by shifting your preconceived ideas and notions. One of the best works I had ever read was Randamoozham by MT Vasudevan Nair. It showed the Mahabharata or some events from it from the eyes of Bheema. The title literally translates as “The Second Turn” and it explores the events from the angst ridden view point of Bhima who has to wait for the second turn always. Be it for the love of his parents, conjugation with Draupadi, the throne. He is sometimes literally reduced to a pawn in the hands of wily politicians like Krishna, Vidura and Shakuni.

Ah…I diverted and dwelled into what might be a separate post. So we ended up on the topic of Draupadi, who was forced to divide everything between her five husbands and slowly to the topic of strong women in literature, mythology, history, politics or even art.

What appeared as a lurking shadow at that moment at the back of my mind slowly crystallized into a solid realization: “where have all the strong women gone?”

Where have the Margaret Thatchers, Magdalene Marys, Anna Kareninas, Drupadis et al…

Is it because that there are no more devotees to put them in their pedestal? The strong feminine evolved and was envisaged by equally fervent admirers, mainly male. Tolstoys, Heaths, Vyasas…

Why don’t men project women in that light anymore? Why have women in print and media diminished in size or being constantly chipped at?

I believe that it has got to do nothing with women being smaller. The problem is that men have shrunk-withered by complexity-and men are so busy trying to grow up with women that they no longer have time to sing of them.