Wicked

Have you ever wanted to leave someone close, someone who has proved to be your true friend for another person you barely know? Physical attraction? Or you just know that there always will be someone having your back? Insane world, insane me, strange, wicked rules of attraction...

We, The Others

Yasmin Bersugurova

We, The Others

          It was one of our ordinary conversations. My friends and I were chatting via Internet on the winter evening when there was nothing else to do. In the street the severe cold wind was trembling the buildings, unable to penetrate inside the house and freeze the dwellers to death. In the evenings like this there is always a charming and calm atmosphere when you just want to sit in the cozy chair, drink a cup of the hot sweet tea with lemon and have a warm, deep, meaningful talk with someone close. In this conversation we were discussing the modern and past relationship between the sexes. In particular, our topic was the women’s self-appreciation and emancipation throughout the times. It started with me reading the random quotations on the web and stumbling across a funny anonymous one, it said “Nowadays the men’s care of women is so rare, that you are uncomfortable with it and feel like saying words of gratitude all the time”. This little citation that I shared with my friends started a huge polemics among us, and it also made me wonder about the self-image of an average woman nowadays and before.

     According to the history, women for a long time had no right to vote, choose their life partner and were defined as servants for men. For many years women were suffering the disfranchisement and oppression in the narrow-minded patriarchy world. The masculines prohibited women from life and activities outside the kitchen, leaving them to clean, cook and breed.  Virginia Woolf in her essay In Search of a Room of One’s Own in description of the Elizabethan century common damsel’s miserable life said that “…In real life she (woman) could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband”. In this short letter of indignation and womanly solidarity Woolf also refers to Professor Trevelyan’s History of England with the extract that “She (woman) was locked up, beaten and flung about the room”. All these facts created the gender stereotype of females as the weaker and less intelligent sex not able to successfully perform traditionally male’s jobs but created just to support and help. The emancipation movement in nineteenth century practically disproved this statement as womenfolk fought for the suffrage and rights equal to men’s. Furthermore, in times of the World War II, women not only replaced the newly-made soldiers on their workplace, putting all their strengths, hard-work and passion into it; but also were fighting in the battlefield as sapper, sharpshooters, machinegunners and military pilots. They were creating the egalitarian society for the future generations of female.

     Returning to that conversation with my friends, we were arguing about women role in modern culture and we also discussed the women’s self-identification. The major point of the argue was that women in the modern times are becoming more masculine and denying their actual nature of being a woman. The desire to make sexes equal has played an evil joke on us, throughout all the feminine rebellion we lost our sense of self–defining and understanding of word “womanhood”. Yes, previously womankind has proved that “weaker sex” CAN replace men in their positions at work and life, but the question is SHOULD WE? We continued to fight without realizing what we are fighting for, having vague idea of the purpose of our actions. The battle between the sexes has made everything a lot more complicated than it used to be as ladies were no longer ladies and gentlemen were no longer gentlemen. It is a fight for identity now, not equality and these terms have almost nothing in common.

     There is a genius writer that completely understood the difference between male and female as well as the role of each one. Long time ago Victor Hugo wrote two amazing books 93 and The Man and The Woman. One of the ideas that he has put in his books was reflecting the main point of the feminist movement – the equality of genders. Victor Hugo defined the place and purpose for both of them. In his philosophical creation “93” he invents the dialogue between two characters, Cimourdain and Gauvain, in the middle of discussion about man and woman’s roles:

“…And woman? What will you do with her?”

Cimourdain answered, “I’ll leave her what she is: man’s servant.”

“Yes, on one condition.”

“What is it?”

“That man also be woman’s servant.”

“Are you serious?” cried Cimourdain. “Man a servant? Never! Man is the master. I acknowledge only one kind of royalty: that of the home. A man is king in his own home.”

“Yes, on one condition.”

“What is it?”

“That woman be queen there.”

“In short, between men and women you want…”

“Equality.”

“Equality! You can’t mean it. Man and woman are two different creatures.”

“I said equality. I didn’t say identity.”…

The main point that Hugo is showing us is that we are different, and the equality in rights does not erase the differences between the genders and does not make us uniform replicas of one another.

     All these facts create the impression that women now are being keeping up their fight for equality or, which is more suitable term - identity, because they do not feel confident in their purpose and mission. It seems like since the times of emancipation there has been a kind of inferiority complex that has crept into the ladies’ minds so that they are still proving something to males, ancestors and more importantly – to themselves.

     On the other hand, that might be not transgenic complex, but one that is being imparted by the environment, culture and upbringing since the early childhood. Think about the little girls, how they grow and act while playing with the dolls – dressing them, pouring the imaginary tea into the tiny cups. They are born to give, to take care, create love and keep the home fires burning. They are born pure with their instincts showing and enlightening them their way. They know already very well what they are supposed to be. And only after a while, when the external education starts, they are being taught to change themselves in order to fit the modern world.  Girls are prepared to be independent, to work hard, to set goals and reach them no matter what, to train their resolution and volition. Aren’t these men’s characteristics? Moreover, they are prepared to live in the world of competitors, pain and constant race; and these definitions of the world are more suitable for male, isn’t it? Instead of being a loving wife and mother, woman now tries to be the successful leader at work and also head of the family clashing with a man for this “positions”, especially confronting her own husband, which complicates the family situation and leaves both of the partners miserable. Who are these women? Sub-men? How did we end up as the unfinished copies of men when we were starting with good intentions? Did the emancipation obliterate our right of being a woman?

     There is a metaphorical short poem by the Russian male author Sergey Vol’nov, which can be translated into English as “Dreams did not let to forget, / Humdrum did not let to remember, / Amidst the stubborn silence/ Rushing in seek of the Moon/ We lost our Sun.” Women have lost understanding of nature of womanhood. Men and women cannot be alike. Man cannot be better than woman and vice versa, because they are different species. Furthermore, woman will never be happy if she goes the men’s way, because she will go against her nature.

     In the book The Man and The Woman Victor Hugo wrote:

Man is the most elevated of creatures,

Woman the most sublime of ideals.

God made for man a throne; for woman an altar.

The throne exalts, the altar sanctifies.

Man is the brain,

Woman, the heart.

The brain creates light, the heart, love.

Light engenders, love resurrects.

Because of reason Man is strong.

Because of tears Woman is invincible.

Reason is convincing, tears, moving.

Man is capable of all heroism,

Woman of all martyrdom.

Heroism ennobles, martyrdom sublimates.

Man has supremacy,

Woman, preference.

Supremacy is strength, preference is the right.

Man is a genius,

Woman, an angel.

Genius is immeasurable, the angel indefinable.

The aspiration of man is supreme glory,

The aspiration of woman is extreme virtue.

Glory creates all that is great; virtue, all that is divine.

Man is a code,

Woman a gospel.

A code corrects; the gospel perfects.

Man thinks, Woman dreams.

To think is to have a worm in the brain, to dream is to have a halo on the brow.

Man is an ocean, Woman a lake.

The ocean has the adorning pearl, the lake, dazzling poetry.

Man is the flying eagle, Woman, the singing nightingale.

To fly is to conquer space. To sing is to conquer the soul.

Man is a temple, Woman a shrine.

Before the temple we discover ourselves, before the shrine we kneel.

In short, man is found where earth finishes, woman where heaven begins.

          We are two different parts of one, perfectly amplifying with each other. Being different is in our inborn character. Any undesirable change that goes under inner, even subliminal, protest is a crime against our nature and our rights. Woman that tries to be like man will never feel contented and delighted with herself, because she will always stay behind. The depression, fear and doubts will be her permanent and omnipresent concomitants. If we understand that and accept our initial nature, we are able to find the harmony for ourselves, share it with the world around and, finally, become happy.

Works cited

1.      The Norton Reader,  An Anthology of Nonfiction. – W.W. Norton & Company - 2008

Virginia Woolf;  “In Search of a Room of One’s Own”

2.      The Norton Reader,  An Anthology of Nonfiction; Virginia Woolf;  “In Search of a Room of One’s Own”. - – W.W. Norton & Company - 2008

Professor Trevelyan; “History of England”

3.      Victor Hugo; 93. Web.

4.      Victor Hugo; The Man and The Woman. Web.

5.      Sergey Vol’nov; Solar Army ( Сергей Вольнов; Армия Солнца) Web.

6.      Anonymous citation from the social network VK.com. Web. www.vk.com

False Stars

It was the end of my first month in Houston; I was walking home in the narrow pathways with some trees and bushes on the sides. The soil was covered with the tiny pieces of the broken glass, these small fragments shined and sparkled in the lights of the street lamps, reminding me of the starry sky over my hometown.  It is amusing, Houston is known worldwide as one of the largest space centers, but you cannot see any stars if you look up in the sky. So I have to look down onto the ground to find something recalling me of the stars, reminding me of home…

    I am homesick. In the warm lonely evenings nostalgia catches me in its steel cold palms, bringing up the memories, inviting the sadness into my mind. I was walking home and thinking about the comfortable and carefree life that I have left in order to come here. I remembered my family, especially my grandma - the way she smelled with the tasty food, the way she hugged me every time I came home from school or work. I thought about her, imagined her beside me and it seemed to me for a moment that the air filled with the scent of her apple pie that she was always baking for my birthday.  But that was just a mirage. I had nobody here.

     I walked some place that I called home now. But it didn’t feel like home there, the empty and dirty apartment filled with noises and people who didn’t even live there, though there were only four of us - the actual leaseholders. Likewise, there were conflicts, a lot of them. “Who washes the dishes? Who took somebody else’s food? Who didn’t pay the bill?” – these are the examples of reasons for fights. Nothing much, but still so uncomfortable and annoying. I knew that we cannot live like this. Everybody did.

    I walked home as slow as I could; I have chosen the longest way to get there. I needed time, space and some silent peace. There was a difficult decision to be made. It had to be over - all the problems, all the irritation – everything. I opened the door, and for the first evening there were no strangers at home. I stood silently in front of the doorway for a moment or two.  I stepped inside and walked towards the round black table where the others gathered. Their faces turned to me, they were pale and tired; they greeted me by nodding or saying lazy “hi’s”. 

     It had to be over. There were four simple words. Everyone knew them, but nobody wanted to say it aloud.

     “We have to move separately”.

     I said it. Aloud.

   “We. Have. To move”.

    “Separately”.

Worth to share

While studying in the HCCS, I have been taking the Composition course. Apparently, it is my favorite course in the meantime. I have always tend to write, it doesn't matter in english or in russian, there always was some unusual and non-real magic in the words and phrases that are created in your head and being written.

My longing for writing has only intensify since I have first attended the English class. There are always a variety of the themes for writing always having a meaningful idea.

I wish that it will be interesting to read some of my essays which I consider worth to share.

Hope that you will enjoy it and may be even provide me with some feedback and evaluation.

Thank you.

Getting Started

This is my second attempt of starting a new blog. However, I won't cut my TUMBLR blog. They will be supporting and completing each other.