Choices

"Life is about choices, but discerning the right choice to make will always be a mystery."

I posted that in response to a friend's Facebook status question. She was asking her friends on what they are pondering about.

I am the kind of person who likes to know what is going on. I want to know what I should be doing and when I should be doing it. I want to know what to expect. I guess I'm telling you that I am a control freak. I've mellowed out throughout the years, but control freak tendencies still loom in my subconscious.

The same friend who had posted the Facebook status introduced me to the works of Frederick Buechner. I am currently reading through Godric. Some passages capture my attention and draw me to ponder on them. I will share one about choices in life.

"'This life of ours is like a street that passes many doors,' Ball said, 'nor think you all the doors I mean are wood. Every day's a door and every night. When a man throws wide his arms to you in friendship, it's a door he opens same as when a woman opens hers in wantonness. The street forks out, and there's two doors to choose between. The meadow that tempts you rest your bones and dream a while. The rackribbed child that begs for scraps the dogs have left. The sea that calls a man to travel far. They are all doors, some God's and some the Fiend's. So choose with care which ones you take, my son, and one day - who can say - you'll reach the holy door itself'" (Buechner, 24).

Fallen Women: Reflections on a Fallen World

This is a topic that does not normally surface during a friendly conversation over coffee. This is a topic that people refuse to think about even though they know, albeit subconsciously, that it exists. This is a topic that people fear, and hate, but mostly fear. Parents fear for their precious daughters. Governments fear for the safety of their people. Religious people fear for the moral and eternal well-being of the population. Yet whispers from this unwanted world escapes to our world every now and again, whispers that attempt to nudge the high and mighty to look upon a fallen world. Whispers that demand action.

I am not an expert on the world of the fallen women. I have no desire to have that particular expertise. However, over the past years, I have stumbled across a few of the whispers I mentioned earlier in literatures and other works of art. The whispers are all different, spanning different eras and different cultures, but the fact that they exist did not escape me.Today, I will attempt to put some of my thoughts into words. A brief encounter with Thomas Hardy's "The Ruined Maid" a week and a half ago brought back memories of a tenth grade literature class reading of Nawal El-Saadawi's Woman at Point Zero. This book is El-Saadawi's retelling of the life and struggles of Firdaus, an Egyptian prostitute and murderess who was on death row. (The reason why tenth graders were assigned to read a book outlining the atrocities in this woman's life is still a mystery to me. I think the book scarred me. Or challenged me. Or both.)

I am providing a link to Hardy's "The Ruined Maid" here. I also have posted a link to Wikipedia's article on Woman at Point Zero here. (This is no academic paper, so I would assume some understanding for my cop out of a reference.) The book can be found in libraries and bookstores, although it is not a common one.

In Hardy's poem, the character known as 'Melia, a self-proclaimed "ruined maid," seems to live life pretty comfortably. She dresses well, talks properly, and lives life to the fullest. Compared to the friend she ran into in town, 'Melia had perks and privileges honest women can only dream of. However, all of the perks and privileges the "ruined maid" enjoyed came with a price: her social and moral respectability. Respectable women living in the Victorian Era had very little say in anything. Life for them meant hard work, as Hardy's poem seem to portray. (Further reading on Victorian life for women can be found here, a blog by Tasha Swinney for our Victorian Literature class this semester.) Looking at their situation from the lens of a woman living in America today, honest and respectable Victorian women seemed very trapped. They are expected to submit and not question. Their society seems to view intelligent, outspoken, and daring women as somewhat veering from normalcy. The question becomes this: what is the better life? Would it have been better to be morally and socially ruined or lead the life of a respectable Victorian woman?

The same question became the focus of Nawal El-Saadawi's book. Her book, Woman at Point Zero, was set in Egypt and was first published in 1975. Firdaus, the death row inmate who is the main character of the book, described what it was like to live as a woman in a patriarchal society. She described how she had tried to earn honest living, but was still oppressed and taken advantage of by men.

“I came to realize that a female employee is more afraid of losing her job than a prostitute is of losing her life. An employee is scared of losing her job and becoming a prostitute because she does not understand that the prostitute’s life is in fact better than hers. And so she pays the price of her illusory fears with her life, her health, her body, and her mind. She pays the highest price for things of the lowest value. I now knew that all of us were prostitutes who sold themselves at varying prices, and that an expensive prostitute was better than a cheap one” (Woman at Point Zero, p.97).

Firdaus had somewhat of the same idea as that communicated by Hardy's ruined maid. She seems to think that a prostitute's life is better than a female employee in 1970 Egypt. I am also posting yet another quote from the book, which was how Firdaus described her identity and her chosen way of life. (Don't worry, this is going to be my last quote from the book. Do I recommend the book? I honestly do not have an opinion. It is an interesting study, yet very raw.)

"Yet not for a single moment did I have any doubts about my own integrity and honour as a woman. I knew that my profession had been invented by men, and that men were in control of both our worlds, the one on earth, and the one in heaven. That men force women to sell their bodies at a price, and that the lowest paid body is that of a wife. All women are prostitutes of one kind or another. Because I was intelligent I preferred to be a free prostitute, rather than an enslaved wife. Every time I gave my body I charged the highest price” (Woman at Point Zero, p117).

In a number of societies throughout history, women have felt oppressed and trapped. It might not be in the here and now, but Victorian England and 1970 Egypt are two examples of when and where women have felt oppressed and trapped. In both cases, the choice of the freedom connected with being less-respectable seemed preferable compared to the respectable norm. By writing these thoughts down, I am not saying that I would like to make this choice (in case you're questioning my motives). I am also not men-bashing. I am merely writing down thoughts and questions about our past and present society. I am sad to say, however, that I ended up with more questions than I did conclusions.

These women decided that they were better off being ruined. What does this say about the society they were living in? Indeed, everyone have the choice to do whatever they want with their lives, but would a different kind of society make a difference?

Can you live without freedom? Would you live without freedom? What price would you be willing to pay for that freedom? For the ruined maid in Hardy's poem, it might be the freedom to be successful and to enjoy life. For Firdaus, it was the freedom to be respected and to be in control of her own life. Even though I haven't discussed Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White (there were no fallen women or prostitution), Marian Halcombe did not fit the Victorian heroine mold. I would say that Marian chose unmarried life for the sake of keeping her intelligent, forthright, and outspoken self intact. (You could argue that she didn't get married due to her face, but that's another discussion altogether.)

What price would you be willing to pay for the freedom to be you?

To be completely honest, I wouldn't know how to answer these questions myself. I'm not able to answer them because I've never been put in this position before. These "whispers" are hard to digest. They tell of societies I would not want to be a part of. They tell of people I would not want to encounter. They tell of hardships I wish I've never read about. However, I think that the hardest part for me to grasp would probably be the fact that this actually happened. Although somewhat scarred by these "whispers" that I've stumbled across, I think that they are important. People need to know that these societies existed, and that these choices were made. I think these stories and poems force us to think about things we would rather not think about; after we've thought about it, maybe we would be compelled to do something about it.