“I am someone else’s property. My proprietorship is mobile. It belongs to my family, and then it moves to my husband after marriage.”
In a world full of mysteries, beauty, art and bitterness, boundaries, and unanswered questions, the human body remains the masterpiece of all times, the key to understanding not only ourselves but the universe. It is our first and primary expression of our existence. Yet this expression is always confronted with the limits and lines of society.
Each and every one of us has our own experiences with our bodies. Each body has a story, a scar, something to tell or to hide. We are all teared up between those stories, our wants and needs, and the social dictatorship. This dictatorship is constantly shaping our perceptions in order to conform.
I’ve always wanted to hear people’s experiences with their bodies. Stories buried behind their clothes and skin. Those stories can tell us a lot about how much the social norms can cost us, how the image of our bodies can define our perception of gender. And how far we can go in order to protect the establishment. So one day I decided to listen to the story of one of my friends. She is a woman of my age and she has a strange relationship with her body.
“ I’ve never felt that my body belongs to me. In every decision I make, whether it is about my clothes, my haircut, my make-up, my jewelry, I have always needed to consider other people’s opinions and views. No, even permission.” she said.” this feeling is not only about how I dress but about how I move my body, how I act and speak, even the way I move my eyes”
“ When did that feeling start exactly? Or to put it better, when did you become aware of what is going on?”
“ I’ve always been aware that I need to meet certain norms in order to be accepted within the group. But, deep in my mind, I have that old memory of me and my father, and back then I was still a kid. We were roaming in the streets of our neighborhood as usual and I was discovering the world. I was staring at the buildings, turning my face everywhere, looking at the sky and birds. Suddenly, my father stopped me and said: you need to stop moving your eyes everywhere, this is not good behavior from a girl. You need to start acting properly. Put your eyes in the ground and walk firmly.”
As those memories are coming to the surface, she stopped, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to cry.
“ are you sure you want to keep talking about this ?”
“ yes” and she continued.” That was the first time I realized that I am a woman. It was my introduction into the notion of gender and that I am categorized. After that, The infernal process started. My mom began covering me up. And my father controls those clothes. I was never allowed to wear certain pieces just like other girls of my age. I can’t show much skin especially when it comes to my chest and under knees…Growing up, I wanted to do certain things in my body like dying my hair or doing a piercing, my mother opposes me and repeats ‘do whatever you want in your husband’s home, if he allows you to’ The idea that I am not my own person, that I am someone else’s property. And that my proprietorship is mobile. It belongs to my family, and then it moves to my husband after marriage. The idea that I am sexualized and objectified even before puberty. All those ideas were entrenched into my mind at a very young age. Especially when my mother decided to do lamination* to me”
“ And what is that ?”
“ When I was 7 as I think. I remember that day. It was summer and we were alone in our house. She told me that we will do something and that I cannot talk about it to anyone. She took a blade and started wounding my left knee seven times and whispering something that I needed to repeat after her. Then she immersed seven raisins in the blood and I needed to eat them. I don’t remember the exact words. When I grew up I learned that lamination is a ritual, not a religious one, that aims to protect a woman from her sexual desires or to be touched by another man before marriage. I can’t forget that day. I was hurt a lot and I cried.”
“ how do you feel about your own body after that ?”
“ I‘ve always hated my body. I have never appreciated the way I am. The way my body functions. I have always hated the fact that for the majority of people around me, somewhere in their brains, I am sexual. Not a neutral person. Not a man. This made me even feel sorry many times that I am a woman. For a long time, there was no connection between me and my body. I tended to cover it, just to forget what happened to me. I was in a phase of denial. I couldn’t face it.”
“ How is your relationship with your mom after what she did ?”
“I’ve never been able to forgive her. I love her so much. after all she is also a victim of her own education. But I can’t overcome it. I still have scars on my skin that will never leave me. When I am with my friends I try to cover them if I am wearing a skirt. After all, it is some form of magic and I am ashamed of it. My closest friend in high school knew about the story and she used to intimidate me with it, by saying ‘ your mom is ignorant, how can she do this.’ I knew that it was the truth and that what she did is ignorance but it still hurts.”
“ Did that have any repercussions on your behavior or decisions ?”
“ Definitely yes. Even if I am not aware of it, I still feel that my decisions and choices in life are somehow influenced by those traumas. For instance, when I had my first sexual intercourse with my boyfriend, I felt that I had my revenge on my mom. I felt that despite her efforts that went to the extent of destroying my body, she didn’t succeed. I’ve even imagined how I want to tell her, To scream in her face and say that I won and I took ownership over my body. I want to tell her that whatever she did, didn’t stop me from making my own decisions concerning my body. I fear that whatever decision I make is out of this anger and revenge, not my own spontaneous desire”-
The discussion ended with a long terrible silence. I couldn’t say a word, but that silence did. This story, despite being an individual experience, tells much about how rigid yet fragile our system of beliefs is. What this woman has gone through is the result of millions of years of perpetual brainwashing of generations. It shows how much we are prisoners of old irrelevant superstitions of genders. If we can learn one lesson from this story is that the battle is not over and that we are still far behind. The system of beliefs we live in is not only futile and unfit for our views about the world, but it is destroying us, leaving us with traumas and deep scars. Although we are a victim of this system, the majority of us are complying in keeping it alive and protecting it.
Opening the discussion about gender, the relationship with one’s body, and having access to sexual education are the crucial keys to destroy the system, pave the way towards a better alternative as we always did as humans.
- The story is shared with the total consent of its owner
- Links that helped me more understand:
