A world ruled by women on International Women's Day 2024.

 

A world ruled by women.

I wonder what the world of today would look like if we had more women in power.

Would there be such violence towards people during times of conflict? Would there be conflict, in the sense of angry men running around murdering innocents, other men flying big planes, operating drones, men being hailed as ‘heroes’ by other men, when returning from the battlefield bathed in blood?

Socialisation of boys and girls varies so much throughout the world, with degrees of separation and role definition, but even in ‘enlightened’ societies, the old anachronistic models of male power and female subjugation are rife. These ways of thinking, extensions of a hunter/gatherer mentality persist in grotesque ways, in the media we consume, the clothes that we wear and the length of our hair. I sometimes wonder if women would choose to have such long impractical hairstyles, if they were not somehow brought up to believe that is ‘beautiful’ and feminine?

What decisions would women make, if they were not constrained by the systemic patriarchy that has created such horrors towards them as the ‘weaker sex’?  Would Christianity (as an example) have an all-together different ideology if the messengers of the divine being had been women?

Would there had been a sexualization of women or for that matter, men, in the media to the extent we see now, or would there have been an acceptance of women’s’ bodies as magical givers of life, with all their processes appreciated and celebrated? Would women’s bodies have been seen as profane, the way they are by religion, needing catharsis and being seen as belonging to others?

What if men and women considered each other equal but different? What if instead of expecting modesty from women and protection from the men, we expected respect from both towards each other?

I was brought up in a society that had highly defined gender roles ascribed for boys and girls, women and men, from birth. It started with the colour of the nursery.  Pink for a girl, blue for a boy. It went on to warn women of the dangers of promiscuity and the men of the dangers of appearing less ‘manly’ through acts that showed care, affection, and nurture.  I think back to the times that I was shooed out of the kitchen by my exhausted mum after dinner, no being allowed to help her, as that was not how men behaved. Her dismay when my father washed up, her perpetuation of all these narratives when advising my sister, embedding them into her like seeds of an invasive plant, as she was growing up.

I recall women not being allowed into the inner sanctum of the church and wondering why God would ask for this specific exclusion in a place that disseminated teachings of love and equality for all ‘His’ children. I remember when in my forties I ventured on a pilgrimage to Mount Athos and feeling breathless at the Byzantine heritage of the immense monasteries and magnificent churches, but deflated at the thought that my partner and daughters were excluded from attending.

I wonder if pregnant women would have been killed by terrorists and if other pregnant women, equally vulnerable would have been bombed by others, displaced, starved to death allowed to live in a land where all basic human needs for hygiene, sanitation and peace had been eradicated?

I wonder if victims of war would live in fear of gender based and sexual violence if women ruled the world, if more women were involved in diplomatic negotiations, if humanity did not consider violence a deterrent but considered love the biggest deterrent of all, the ultimate protection, in fact from violence?

I know that I am attributing what are traditionally considered to be gender specific predispositions to women and men. There is I suppose no way of knowing if women would rule the world in a more equitable, safer and less violent way. I just sometimes think of these things when I see men fighting, men extorting the value of motherland, country, religion, and race.

Everything is a continuum, a colour wheel, a set of possibilities, actions and reactions, an evolution of a step backwards into a lesser place. Sometimes when I see humanity in such a terrible mess, when we hear the horrors of terrorism and the propensity for ‘good’ men to inflict horrors on others, separated only by a definition and an identity, I think of the sea. So beautiful, so eternal, yet impossible to control, to predict. Eternal flux is however the way of a thing open to the winds, vast and exposed, insentient and unaware.  Surely not us, not us humans.  If I feel, then so do others.  If I hurt, then so do others. If I have rights so do others. If I want to be heard, seen, and loved in this short time on Earth, I owe the same privileges to others.

I was brought up in a patriarchal society, but it was teh miracle of having daughters taht ultimately opened my eyes to the imbalances and the resulting injustices perpetrated towards women. Women, the life-givers. What could I do differently became my mantra. I wish it could become yours.