"From politics, it was an easy step to silence."
     

Jane Austen

This woman lived in a totally different culture, and died almost 200 years ago... but she is still capable of making me laugh!

What Makes a Woman a Heroine?

This week a friend and I went round a new art exhibition, here in Madrid, entitled "Heroínas" (Heroines) - an exhibition which depicts women  through art, spanning many centuries and focusing on the different aspects which have been drawn out by the artists. 

Whilst slightly begrudging the fact that we paid the entrance fee, only to discover half way round that the second half of the exhibition was in a different art gallery (!), we were intrigued by  variety of the collection of artwork, and the thought behind its presentation. It was worth the walk to the second gallery to finish the tour.

 

What particularly interested us was the way in which the art was categorised, not chronologically, but in themes. The buzz word for feminism over recent years has been "empowerment" and this idea is established from the very name of the exhibition, which awards the title "heroine" to the array of different women depicted through the pictures: some iconic such as Joan of Arc, some highly symbolic, others merely peasant women, and a significant group are the female artists themselves.

In the light of this desire to portray the empowerment of women through art, the choice of categories is intriguing. The paintings or photos are grouped under the following aspects: solitude, work, delirium, sport, war, magic, religion, reading and painting. Several of these show obvious links to the idea of "empowerment", while other sections, particularly "solitude" - which depicted women in a state of apparent waiting, loneliness and passivity - do not seem to fit with the generally accepted idea of a heroine.

So what makes someone a heroine? The dictionary definition for the word is "a woman of distinguished courage or ability, admired for her brave deeds and noble qualities." Does that mean, as the exhibition seems to imply, that you can award such a title to any woman, simply for being female? The exhibition was thought-provoking as to the less conventional qualities of a heroic person... Solitude for example is claimed in this exhibition to hold "the seeds of independence and even resistance". 

What qualities would you expect from a "heroine"? Personally, I think I value qualities like kindness,  passion, wisdom or faithfulness in the women I admire, more than  I do rebellion or resistance.

When the lights go out...

Could we survive without electricity? Yesterday I read in the news that the Japanese government is having to cut the electricity periodically for three hours at a time because there currently isn’t enough energy to go around. After all the atrocities that have gone on in their country during the last week, it is going to be a long and difficult road back to stability for the Japanese. Loss of power, as well as even portable water in some areas, means that the direct effects of the crisis are far from over.

The article made me reflect on just how dependant we are in the 21st Century on electricity in every part of our daily lives. It started me thinking about how much would be different:

•  No lights- so you couldn’t carry on normal life after dusk

• No phone – so you would be unable to contact people
• No computers – offices would have to shut down
• No internet or television – for news, entertainment, etc.
• No street lights or security cameras – it would no longer be safe at night.
• No trains or traffic lights - so your travel would be effected.
• No microwave/toaster/kettle or possibly even cooker – so you would have to eat cold food.
• Freezers and fridges would defrost so food would go off.
• Automatic doors/cash registers/ in shops or public buildings would not work.
• For hospitals... I don’t know where to begin.

The list goes on and on and it is amazing to realise just how powerless we would be!

A power cut can be troublesome and awkward, or maybe even quite fun depending on your situation. But I imagine the fun would soon wear out and ultimately our society today would fall into chaos after a prolonged lack of electricity. So... I hope they find an adequate replacement by the time the world’s crude oil supply runs out! Otherwise, I guess we really should at least start buying energy saving light bulbs...

Free Needles for Heroin Addicts

A few miles the south of the buzzing, metropolitan city of Madrid lies a small "gitano" village which is home to some of the most desperate people I have ever met: heroin addicts. The gitanos (travellers) make a good living out of drug trafficking but there in a rubble-filled, deserted car park the drug addicts sit in small makeshift tents or just lie out on worn out mattresses. Those who have been on drugs the longest are easily identifiable by their swollen, blackened hands and shuffling steps. It is hard to imagine, walking around the vibrant, lively centre of the Spanish capital, that such a subculture exists just a few kilometres away.

Betel, the church that I am going to here in Madrid, has a huge ministry to drug addicts. Betel started here just 25 years ago with the dream of helping the addicts kick their habits and has since spread throughout the world. Thousands of changed lives from around the globe testify to the love of these Christians and the power of God in breaking chains of addiction.

The team from Betel visit the site daily to give them food, tea and clothes, as well as to encourage those who want to that they are able to escape from the trap that they have found themselves in. They have several different rehab centres in the city where those who choose to can go to turn their lives around: a far longer and more painful task than it may sound. While out with the team, I asked what the large coach was doing on the site and one of them explained it was a government project which handed out free needles to the addicts.

Apparently, giving out free needles for the prevention of HIV is a Europe wide initiative. Clearly the EU has carefully considered this as the best option, yet it seems a controversial way of “helping” the situation. There were also several policemen around the area, and while we appreciated their protection, it seems strange that they were doing nothing to stop those taking drugs. One of the addicts who had just been shooting up went to the coach to get his arm bandaged up. 

The government seems to feel it is more important to prevent HIV than to discourage drug abuse. These addicts have been deemed beyond rescue. However Betel would disagree and it has been wonderful to meet several of the recovering addicts on Sundays, many years on, with families and jobs and a bright future ahead.

"Sho yur luv" for di Caribbean

Perhaps you are wondering why I have a Caribbean island pictured in my blog header.

During the third year of my degree course I was able to visit Belize, home to the world's second largest coral reef.  Aside from seeing some amazing sea creatures, what enchanted me most about the trip was experiencing Caribbean English.

I’ve always loved the film Cool Runnings - the Jamaican accents are amazing - and during my degree I loved studying the development of creoles around the world, especially when we touched upon the Jamaican dialect. Although it is our language, English in the Caribbean has evolved to take on a whole character of its own. A particular highlight of the trip was being asked at the restaurant in the morning if I would like "beer can" with my morning pancake. 

Besides which, the Belize have a brilliant sense of humour. Here are a few images which capture the atmosphere:

 

 

 

  

 

Trapped between Chauvinism and Feminism... and the dirty dishes.

This morning, as is the role of an English conversation tutor in Spain, I spent an hour chatting over coffee to a lovely Spanish lady and earned more money per hour than I could have believed possible for doing what I love most. However, today’s lesson left quite an impression on me. This mother of two small girls works a full time job 7.30 – 15.00 in an office of 40 employees in which she is the only woman. She then comes home to pick up her children from school and set about running her own resale business which she set up after getting married, and for which she sometimes works till 1am packing the goods to be posted to her clients. Add to this the fact that her husband, who, to his credit, holds down a full time job, does not involve himself in the feminine household activities: cleaning, cooking, washing... As the man of the house he reserves his energy for fixing anything that breaks, changing light bulbs, etc.

The idea of feminism was surely emancipation for women, yet the reality is sometimes not so clear. In a conference at the EU in Brussels last year, a survey informed us that the life-expectancy of women – traditionally far higher than that of a man – has been falling in recent years as the strain of working full time alongside giving birth, breast-feeding and bringing up children starts to take its toll on women’s health.

Amazingly, my time spent working with the European Union actually swayed me further away from feminism! I attended various lectures on the importance for children of having parents who invest in them, not to mention a Swedish study showing that the majority of working mothers end up with jobs in childcare anyway! It seems sad that the value of being a mother, or investing in family, has diminished so much. Perhaps staying at home and looking after young children full time is not everyone’s cup of tea, or always financially viable, but the benefit children receive is undeniable. Speaking of cups of tea, perhaps there are advantages to spending one's days taking children to the park or meeting up with other mums in coffee shops...Ha.

But of course, as equal opportunities open up for women in the workplace, it seems only fair that men are equally given the opportunity to participate in housework. Women of the 21st Century have moved on, but in many households they are waiting for men to catch up.

One of the problems in Spain is that people live with their parents until well into their 30s, as was the case with my student’s husband, whose mother still sorted his dirty washing until he married. Today’s University system in Britain does more than just educate women. It provides men with a vast practical education on the necessities of housework and cleanliness, which is hard to achieve while still under the mother’s wing at home. This is one of the main benefits of finding a man with a degree. My boyfriend is already becoming a very good cook. The fact that his mum still irons his boxers when he visits home is a minor detail which I am afraid he will have to learn to live without if we reach that stage in the relationship. ;-)