Halways Backdoors
I get up as quietly as possible and
leave the room. I go to the farther door because walking behind an
extra person is better than the loud door that clicks a lot as it
shuts. I have been taught to not take up space.
A male classmate comes in late, and
loudly. He wedges into the table next to me. He physically moves my
things so he can put his down. He has been taught to take up space.
The hallway I walk down to the bathroom
is filled with pictures and portraits. Upstairs, there's ordination
classes, which eventually include women. Here there is just wall
after wall of giant, white-dude faces, looking smugly down on me. On
one hand, this is our history. They can't help it if for hundreds of
years women were excluded. Some of them, maybe most of them were
amazing, upstanding people who fought for equality. Still, I see
generations of not me. I see
an institution that still preferences a certain demographic. Part of
me feels defeated. Part of me fights with all of my soul, flipping
the patriarchy the middle finger and saying, I am here
anyway.
Perhaps
a male classmate walks down the hallway and sees a long, beautiful,
lineage. Does he notice that there aren't any women (or POC)? He
feels a part of something bigger than himself.
I feel
constant waves of obstacle. I fight harder to take up less space, so
I'm not pushy. I fight harder to take up more space, so my voice can
be heard. I fight so hard because I still do not have a space. I do
not have a seat at the table or the conversation, literally.
I
spent most of January fighting for a space. And I won the space, but
my voice was never heard. I literally, had one straight, cis,
white-dude telling me that two other, straight, cis white-dudes
DECIDED I would do something regardless of the outcome of my battle.
Without ever consulting me. Upon giving me my
requested-and-fought-for space, one of the white-dudes, informed me
that he hoped I would adhere to MY COMMITMENT. I had actually been
very careful to not commit. If two of the three white-dudes had
listened to me, they might know that.
The
truth is a group of men told me what I was doing with a part of my
life and told themselves that I had agreed. That is the most
dangerous part of this exploration: They used their power over me and
wrote in my consent. Somewhere
in their private conversations about MY LIFE, they convinced
themselves that my voice was present.
The
portraits giggle at me while I walk to and from the bathroom: Women
have smaller urethra's.
I am
degraded. I am angry. I am forced to pick my battles so that I may
live my life when really I want to run through that hallway with a
hammer, literally smashing the patriarchy.
Aaron
was silent because his sons were taken from him. Women are silent
because they were never really written into the story. For a moment,
I am Sarah's imagined crying as Isaac is taken away. I am Rebecca's
scheming because she has no direct power. I wait for the Shechina to
come down and smother us with feminine power. Because she needs no
space and yet is with us all the time.
