Women as seen by scientists?

Dear writer who chose to stay anonymous,

Are you a product of your time or was your time a product of you?

If I show this to your grandson do you think he'd have a good laugh too?

I wonder how much he's just like you…

They say some things are generational and should just be accepted. Every generation has had their own things to say whether it’s about marginalised communities or just their sense of humour. Through each generation, some things that make us smile have remained universal, for example, a rainbow at noon after a morning of gentle rain. Sometimes, they’re not so intergenerationally universal, like senseless jokes that are only funny to six or seven people (bad one, I know). Then there is a very specific genre of humour that appeals to a very specific type of person and this genre makes me wonder if we’ve lost direction. Then I look back, find a piece like the one above, realise how they’ve always seen us, and wonder if we ever found the right direction in the first place.

Once upon a time, I was this jester’s muse

Then came the self-defence you taught your daughter to use.

Maybe you grew up to regret the words you wrote.

Maybe you realised you wanted her to keep her right to vote.

It’s often the people who hate the world, who have the most air in their lungs. There was a time, before this piece was written, when the ladies wiped off their lipstick to seal the ballot envelope and I’m sure they hoped their sons took note. Maybe when these women’s daughters kept their fight alive, their husbands realised the world was no longer theirs alone. I wonder if these husbands came around, or if they taught their sons to steer the same cycles they grew up with.

I bet your girlfriend rolled her eyes but kept quiet when she read this

I wonder if she said something, would you even listen?

I assume she only stayed mum since you and her father showed her what she thought didn’t matter.

Or was it an ex-girlfriend?

Perhaps a woman who never agreed to be with you?

Was it the lack of a woman’s touch and your melancholic heartbreak that pushed you to seek comfort in these vile experimental jests?

Loneliness loves sitting behind the wheel, driving you into a wall that reflects your thoughts back to you. They’ve been calling it an epidemic lately, haven’t they? Should we think about the path that led us to this place? I wonder if the original piece still felt good for you today, and whether your raw thoughts are what keep us at least an arms length away.

I bet there was a woman, more wonderful than any.

She probably looked like Audrey Hepburn and smelled like bergamot, jasmine, and mahogany.

I’m sure she spoke in epiphanies you couldn’t comprehend.

I’m sure she had a will of steel, I hope it never bent.

If they made her a mother by the time she was my age, I hope she showed them who she is, I hope she raised all hell.

My mother is the daughter of a woman who raised hell. She travelled the world, blended escapism into my blood. She bought mini-skirts from Camden and wore them in rural India as the least of her protests. She and her sisterhood paved the way, they’re why I’m a woman in science today.

With dignity and ‘high explosion’,

Tia Arora, MSc.