The strongest person in my life is a woman. Not because she is a female, definitely not. However, if you were to look her up on social services, police reports, whatever other form exists out there, you would see that in this man’s world we are caged in, she is weak. She isn’t brave; she’s provocative. She isn’t admirable; she needs to be taught how to Behave Like A Girl, and do as she’s told. I’ve come to realise that society has it wrong way round. Don’t train domestic abuse victims to pick better men – teach everyone to not harm another. Don’t condemn individuals for not standing up for themselves – teach society not to belittle anyone.
There was a point that the world wished to give up on me. With a rare form of ocular albinism, my family were told that I would never make it into mainstream education, never live independently, never walk past a wall without walking into it. Now, I’m in upper sixth, completing my A-Levels and hoping to be attending Durham University come October time. It wasn’t my own determination that got me to a point of somewhat “normal”. A two year old doesn’t quite get the concept that their world is being limited because their eyes do not work as they’re supposed to. How did I go beyond that? A strong guide. I mean, I haven’t quite nailed the not walking into walls, but that’s irrelevant… We found ways and means around my poor depth perception and lack of sight. Glasses, specialists, surgery, quality street wrappers on dull wooden doors, an eye patch, no glasses, stronger glasses, practice, colouring-in, gymnastics, jigsaw puzzles, transitional lenses, climbing frames, accommodations, persistence. She could have let me sit down and wallow. Instead, we found a means and a way. Of course I have limits; it’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to drive, and I made have to pay extra on printing things to see, but that’s okay. I don’t consider it limiting at all, only because I was taught to fight all barriers.
In contradiction to how most people think of the situation, I’ve been truly blessed by growing up in a single parent family, with the greatest mothership I could wish for (mothership because she’s safe, always there to return to, always a guide). She persisted on my behalf that I would make it through. I didn’t need the world to be made smaller, I simply needed a bit of extra time and patience to get me where I need want to go.
More importantly, however, she emphasised that I do not need anyone else. Just because I am a girl, does not make me, by any standards, weak. I learnt from her that when you are knocked down by the world, you get back up. You go to the course on how to choose a partner that likes your skin as it is, not blue/purple/black, and when the realisation that it is wrong to blame the victim clicks in, you fight back.
After a second domestic violence case, it is no longer the fault of the attacker. They were under the influence, didn’t know what they were doing, didn’t mean it as it happened – wrong. It is wrong to hit a woman and it is wrong to hit a man and it is wrong to hit a child, or animal, or any other living being, whether you consider it justified or not. To put it blatantly, it is not, in any way, justified.
Growing up, I saw boys as gross, for want of a better word in the broad vocabulary of a four year old. Not superior, not inferior, rather, just different. I’m not sure where it changed, or when boys became strong and girls pretty. But I would like to think society as a whole is changing.
Think about it – J.K Rowling had to initial her name, as well as make up a middle name, to satisfy an agent who believed that no one would read Harry Potter if they knew it was written by a female. Absurd, right? This is the result of a Men – Superior, Women – Be Quiet mentality. We’ve made progress from the days of Shakespeare, when women were subjects to their fathers, then their husbands, that’s for sure. Will we settle for that? Absolutely not.
Until we are all humans, there’s no relenting.
“God is within her, she will not fall;” Psalm 46:5.
Take care,
– Writerield
Éan Ceoil 