As I waited at the train station in the morning rush hour, I noticed a frail middle aged woman with gray hair in the crowd. She was dressed eloquently, and I thought, she must have an exquisite sense of fashion – she must have turned heads when she was younger! The following article is dedicated to her.
I read this book when I was in my early 20s – “an unnecessary woman”. The book has way too many references to classic music, literature, stories. The Lebanese author explored themes of history, war, art and the place of a woman in society. But wasn’t she blowing it out of proportion, when she called the protagonist unnecessary? How can the life of a human matter so little? Wars and the horrors persist, but so does love, and hope. Can anyone truly be futile in their existence?
But as I get deeper into my 30s, I have started to notice all the unnecessary people in the society around me. I will be one, too, soon enough. A middle aged woman creates value of her life by being of service to a man. She matters because she is someone’s mother, or wife. She is never the center of the pedestal, she is never enough on her own. Respect and value are earned, and if a woman doesn’t learn what makes her worthy of these in her youth, she is an unnecessary extension of the society that nobody wants around them.
You might argue, it’s the same for men? Men earn their value through their work, output and agency. And I might be inclined to agree, however, a woman cannot hope to earn value through the same means as a man. She has to go that extra mile, she is always expected to do and be more. And be happy with less. That’s the unwritten contract our society has laid out for them. “A thing of beauty is joy forever” Keats exclaimed; I wonder if he knew how heavy these words would weigh against our hearts when we see these forgotten lives. Lives of women who work and pour their energies into the world around them, with a hope, maybe disillusionment, that they will reap the benefits of their work, someday, with dignity.
Women are taught that looks matter, submissiveness is “hot”, that love is earned by being agreeable and soft. The concept of princess treatment is eroding away at the progress feminism made in the last 200 years. The old, “unnecessary” women today remember the struggles of their grandmothers and aunts, and try to warn the new generation, but who would listen to someone who has nothing of value (beauty, respect?)
It is a man’s world, and that is not a coincidence. A middle aged woman is unnecessary, war or not. Women these days, who choose to stay single and/or childless are going against the patriarchy, in a way they were never conditioned to. If all the propoganda of fairy tales, romcom movies and damsel-in-distress did not get to them, how bad must it be? What have our ancestors prevailed, and if this is the most feminist of all times, how terrible was living for women in the past?
Nobody has time to ponder on this, except women who have their dull futures staring into their faces. Who cannot change time, society, or even work to get out of their situation, courtesy their chromosomes. There is a certain helplessness in being a woman, being at the mercy of others even if you are self sufficient. Words like leadership, assertiveness, confidence, don’t mean the same for you as they do for the men, and it’s just part of life. But I digress, unnecessarily.
If there’s nothing you can do to avoid being “unnecessary”, here’s what I propose:Live your best life. Make yourself the target audience, since only you know what it took to get here. Nobody can appreciate and love you the way you can. And if society calls you self centered, selfish or a waste of breathe, pause and consider if this is a reflection of their sexism, their internalized greed and capitalistic thoughts, instead of your non-necessity. Do not let the ghost of society bully you into giving away your precious life, and learn to detach from opinion of others. Years from now, when you have grey hair and puckered lips, some youthful misguided teenager might judge you in a public space, thinking it’s a pity you didn’t bank on your beauty in your youth, like she plans to. She might take it as a reality check, course correction, throw herself more aggressively into the dating world, pick her knight in shining armor. You will stand there like an antitheses, and taste the freedom in your mouth, the one you fought so hard to achieve, the one that labelled you unnecessary, just a little brighter than the rest of them. And you’ll thank yourself for loving your life, and know that you are the most important person in your universe, and nobody can take that from you. Being secondary in your own mind to someone else is unfathomable, and not worth any riches the external world can throw in your face. So ladies, let the world think of you as unnecessary, but never let it in. And you’ll be more than fine.
