“Dr.” Watson and ‘Wariyapola girl’
View(s):All it takes for the gender wars to heat up is for a pretty celebrity to open her mouth and say nothing much in particular about everything important in general. Emma Watson spoke out last week, upping the ante and raising the room temperature several notches. Her ‘He For She’ speech as a UN Goodwill Ambassador for Women has been generating more heat than light, but at least it has caught the interest of the desired target audience: men. Even if her content paled in comparison to that of her non-celeb-status co-ambassador – the more strongly worded polemic of Phumzile Mlambo Ngucka – “Harry Potter’s Hermione Granger” had the attention of the more dominant sex (and more of it) virtually instantly. Here’s her most apposite argument in a cockleshell:
In a world with two main sexes, where one is said to be or seen to be ‘stronger’ than the other, there are bound to be gender stereotypes. Men make most of these gender stereotypes, but I (says Emma Watson) have news for you: Men are bound by many of the gender stereotypes that other men make, have made, and will continue to make – until and unless the game changes. Since men as well as women are “imprisoned by gender stereotypes” and it is men who make these prisons, it stands to reason that if men are “free”, things will change for women “as a natural consequence”.
Which, for some reason that is not readily discernible to most men like me, made many feminists a little hot under their lace collars. They said they admired Watson for her “courage” and appreciated her attempt to “encourage” oppressed womanhood worldwide, but quibbled more than a bit about the substance that her shaky and often hesitant diatribe ostensibly lacked. And while the admirable Emma was hailed as “brave” and “bold”, we were told that she hadn’t said nearly enough to challenge the “patriarchal structures” whose enforcement is the root cause and continuity guarantor of the problem.
Someone who did make a ripple – in fact, quite a splash closer home, quite recently – also failed to make a change (although the waves she made are still rocking a few boats). Everyone who uses social media – and many who don’t, preferring more traditional options – could not have failed to catch ‘Wariyapola Girl’ (as her fans dubbed her) in action. Propositioned by a pervert in a public bus, she disembarked at Wariyapola bus station and promptly proceeded to slap the man about, all the while haranguing her erstwhile tormentor with choice epithets for the benefit of a captive audience. He stood stock still – as the video testified – and took it… and then lodged a complaint against her for battery and assault (apparently his hearing had been damaged in the head-punching he took). The story took a cloud-cuckoo-land twist when the police charged WG, our heroine, with the crime of – what exactly it was is hard to say. Most of the commentators on Facebook and Twitter who were sympathetic with the girl in the immediate aftermath were men. What that says about Sri Lankan feminism I’d rather not comment on in this forum. Much ink has been spilled since, and the fundamental rights case WG has filed against the police – who subjected her among other indignities to a medical investigation against her consent – is sub judice now… so I hold my piece with gladness.)
What women’s lib’s local chapter had or has to say in response to EW’s ‘HeForShe’ I don’t know… yet. But going by what was said – or not – to WG’s ‘TitForTat’ on FB and Twitter, I think the battle lines are as (if not more) clearly drawn in our island’s own gender conflicts. My contention (as is yours, I’d wager) is that the issue is far too wide and deep to address in any meaningful manner in a single sitting, a lone column, or even a series of articles; but perhaps a few salient points might help us all to sit up and take notice and begin to reflect on an issue that (according to EW at least) affects men as much as women.
As is often the case with knotty issues, challenging the status quo as much as the conventional wisdom with questions yields the most interesting dividends:
n Is Emma Watson right that men are as much trapped by stereotypical gender roles as women are, and if so what would it look like to free them first so that women might be liberated from gender oppression? (Do you know a man in such bondage? Can you try to free him? Will local men feel they have to proposition women, ogle them, wolf-whistle at them, even rape them – to prove their ‘manhood’?)
n Was Wariyapola Girl right to join battle with her oppressor to the extent of taking the law and her persecutors ears into her own boxing hands, in a milieu where apathy and ignorance of law-makers and law-enforcers have left women at the mercy of prosecutors and perverts alike? (What stance would you take if it was your girlfriend or daughter who was harassed?)
n Will the fundamental rights case redress the imbalance of justice? Or lend another illusion to the land of peace we live in?
n Or will it swing the pendulum back between and among several power players, each with a vested interest or agenda to press: victim, perpetrator, prosecutors, spectators, state, media? (Whose voice must count for most in the end, and why?)
n Would prolonged publicity bring out the darker secrets that our guilt and shame culture has kept out of sight for sake of prudence and prurience – such as child prostitution, spousal abuse, and sexual slavery? (Let us probe this further.)
n Could there ever be an outcome to WG’s case and counter-case (in and out of the law courts), in which it may be felt by all that justice had been done? Peace with justice is a consummation still devoutly being wished.
n Should there be a larger concern than justice being done, such as future crimes not being committed and awareness about gender issues being raised and sharpened and heightened?
n Can the men of Sri Lanka in the marketplace and town square alike take a greater interest in the putative welfare of women – among whom number their mothers, sisters, cousins, wives, daughters, nieces, and grandchildren? Do, say, feel, think, or reflect something – don’t be apathetic and ignorant!
n Must an entire generation of our women be sacrificed on the altar of economic expediency – in our sweat shops, on our plantations, out of sight in slave markets overseas?
n Shall women themselves abdicate the right to have a say in their own safety and protection by refusing to engage with EW’s bantamweight banter or WG’s solid left look to the upper jaw?
We live in a bi-gender world. Says Malthus there are two sexes, though Madonna puts it at four, while Miley Cyrus and her ilk may have invented two or three more. But the main war is between men and women. Be these genders and LGBTIC+ sexual orientations what these may, the moment you have a war between the sexes, you run out of options – and people – sooner or later.
Maybe the problem is not between the sexes per se, but a matrix of power and interpersonal interactions. If the incident of a policeman beating a woman brutally this week is anything to go by, power corrupts and impunity corrupts absolutely. Coppers or politicos alike, it’s time to bring to book the stereotype-makers who give lawmaking and law-enforcement a bad name. Be they men in bondage to gender-based typecasting or women suffering in it.