To Be or Not To Be

A little kingdom I possess,
Where thoughts and feelings dwell;
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well.
~ Louisa May Alcott

...that more or less describes my situation!

~A Wise Man Said~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle
Friday, April 06, 2018
 
Credibility

I suppose every human being is credible in at least the sense that he or she exists. Unlike God, the existence of a man or a woman is proven. The existence of us creatures in the eyes of society is another matter. I will not go into what a man must be or must do to truly ‘exist’ in today’s society or to be ‘credible’ simply because I am not a man. I do not know. I do not know what goes on within a man’s mind or a man’s heart, what battles and turmoils a man faces, what thoughts keep him sleepless at night…in short, I can’t speak for a man.

I never really thought before about what makes a woman socially credible. Maybe because I never felt discredited before, never felt that there was something that was missing in my identity that made me less of a woman and less of a representative member of the category of women. Something happened recently to make me realise that a woman must be or do certain things for her to be seen as credible, and she must do those things within the time frame assigned to her by society so that her identity card as a woman continues to remain valid.
I find it a bit painful to reflect on this incident chiefly because the actors involved are dear to me…should I say ‘were dear’ because I cannot really pretend that there is no dent in my affection for them. I realised that for people whom society’s rules and prescriptions matter more than their own authentic connections, you cease to be a connection the moment you do not appear to subscribe to the norms or follow the set formulas laid down by society.
The fact is that if you never cared for or bothered with what society demands and expects of you as a woman, especially a traditional society such as ours, it jolts you suddenly to realise that it is not nameless, faceless people who represent this society but those close to you who actually have the power to hurt you, those on whose lap you might have played as a child, those who have seen you grow, those who were always love and fondness for you, those are the people who diminish your essence. They may not understand you as indeed they never have but you think of them as people who do not have to understand you to love you as you do not understand them to love them… It pained me to discover that for some of these people your life and choices if they weren’t in tune with society’s expectations you no longer had the same credibility with them… it pained me even further to find out that they won’t spare any time in finding replacements who give their status as a conventional member a boost. The conventional replacements are only too enthusiastic to acquire a new patron because they in their place are worried about losing the only thing that makes them credible… as society broadens its views. Their docility and conventionality are as much their weapons as their shield…but they hide it in a veneer of benevolence trying not to make too much of their membership as if they never sought it for themselves.
I guess whatever credibility may mean for the world, and what it means evolves over time too, there have to be some people for whom your credibility is defined by your integrity, authenticity, and their own belief in you. If I lose my university ID card today I may expect to be turned away for a class, but I wouldn’t expect to be turned away at home! I’m glad that I had this experience of being ‘turned away’ or more like ‘not being invited’ by some people whom I thought of as closer home… it made me reflect on my credibility.

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 5:30 pm 0 comments
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