It's not war

I had a difficult night's sleep.

I know that's not unusual for me but last night I worried.  I worried about the world and I worried about women and it left me feeling uneasy and seeped into my dreams.

I dreamt of a world in the midst of a revolution and woke up shouting, "Sandra! No, Sandra! Just make a cup of tea!"  I have no idea who Sandra is or why I thought tea was going to solve the problem but I was left with the feeling that I had not properly supported Sandra in her revolutionary efforts in a post-apocalyptic world.

It's probably because I felt I had not properly supported a young girl that I met when walking the dog yesterday.

School holidays leave me with too much time for my mind to wander. I have time to watch TV and go to the cinema, walk the dog at leisure and read too much nastiness on Twitter.  Yesterday, I watched the Handmaid's Tale and Dunkirk. Twitter was full of misogynistic rage against women, especially against Mary Beard who said something about history that a couple of men also said. The news out of Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan report the terrible plight of the women living there and women in this country are turning on each other over suggestions that women should be able to have top jobs.

It depresses me that we think that women and men are at war. Still.  Sit through Dunkirk and tell me that you want to be at war.

When I read the Handmaid's Tale in the 80s it got under my skin.  I was out of sorts for weeks.  It had never really occurred to me before that women could be so badly treated.  I'm still not sure I approve of the book.  It always worries me that life imitates art and so you probably shouldn't write the worst thing you can imagine. Just after I read the book I was in a park with my family and there were a group of people, which we would now recognise as Muslim.(It was an unusual sight then)  The women were in full black (jilbab and niqab) tents with their eyes peering out of a small slit.  I asked my mum if they were 'breeders' and if they needed help.  My mum hadn't read the book but we had a good discussion on whether just the wearing of such clothes was oppressive to women.  We decided that it could be just as the girls dancing on Top of the Pops in their pants could be oppressive to women.  We thought no more about whether the women (or the girls on TOTP) needed help and only concerned ourselves with what we thought was 'right'.

That is a problem.  Instead of concerning ourselves with the safety and happiness of each individual person we lump people into groups and think about what is 'right'.  This can stop us acting when we know we should.

When the Long Suffering Husband and I went to Greece on holiday before we had children we were woken in the night by a huge row exploding on the balcony opposite us.  The man was screaming and shouting at a sobbing woman and throwing all of her possessions from the balcony to the street below.  He was calling her a slut and suggesting that she had slept with someone else.  The girl went down to collect her things and he wouldn't let her back in.  We did nothing.  We talked about it.  The LSH wondered who goes on holiday with a boyfriend and sleeps with someone else.  I often think about her and hope she was safe but at the time we only thought about who was 'right'.

Yesterday, I hope I did better. A young couple sat in a car in a car park shouting at each other.  Her handbag was thrown out and when she got out to get it he sped away, driving angrily and dangerously.  She stood, shaking and sobbing.  People watched.  They stood still. They tried to decide who was right.  They didn't want to get involved.
"What do you think happened there?" the LSH asked me.
"It doesn't matter," I said, "take the dog."
I went over and asked if she needed any help.  Her tears made me want to cry with her but I didn't.
She said that she was fine and would ring a friend.  I told her that I would be on the field with the dog if she changed her mind.

I did something but I wish I'd done more.

I wish I had stood with her until her friends arrived. I wish I'd told her to ring her mum. I wish I had cried with her and told her that I didn't think she'd been treated fairly.  I wish I'd told her she was worth better.  I wish I'd helped her feel less powerless. I wish I'd made sure that she was safe.

I wish I'd done this without thinking that all men are dicks.