Silly Woman

The other day I was munching on my lunch and flipping through the Martlet when I came across a read so compelling, I nearly walked into a truck, two people, and summarily ended up falling into a pond (I’d say puddle, but no one calls something two feet deep a puddle). I am, of course, referring to “La femme de la revolution.”

Upon reading that women aught to “rise up against oppression, reject society’s definition of beauty and revolutionize how we view ourselves,” I snorted. Then, I made it to the line in which I’m told females need “to stop being objectified, sexualized and judged” and I gagged a little. By the time I reached the part where I’m told that I “must drastically alter the misconception that females are subordinate and powerless” and that I, in fact, “hold all the power to define [my] fate” I could taste the banana bile. At this point, I was so absorbed by the informative properties of the article that I had completely forgotten that my feet were still swimming.

I don’t know who the author is, but Jesus, does she ever have her cotton panties in a bunch. Though I must commend her thorough research (who knew that Ariel Levy believes women have become “chauvinistic pigs?”) and ability to avoid broad, sweeping generalizations, I simply can’t imagine why on earth someone would go through the trouble of dating themselves by comparing Playboy to genital mutilation. After all, I came into the article believing I was about to learn to which point “female dignity, pride and respect” is vanishing, but ended it with a vague feeling that I had just completed last centuries Intro to Women’s Studies.

Although I wouldn’t dare suggest that perhaps the author aught to untangle her panties, I do wonder what exactly she suggest I do. Should I begin ignoring the critique my “chauvinistic” female professors have for my work? (Though I’m not sure I’ve got the balls, ironically.) In the name of condemning “unrealistic societal ideals,” should I stop applying makeup post kickboxing class and throw out my revealing dresses? My high heels? What about my bras? Society has been pretty hard on chicks that don’t wear them lately. Hell, maybe I aught to give up showering completely. I’m fit enough, why should I listen to the rest of what society has to say?

Though I do appreciate the nod made to women in positions of power (think Hillary Clinton and Michaëlle Jean), I fail to see why other women should not wear fitting dresses or dance naked. I myself have been known to wear my rugby spandex underneath short skirts while going shot for shot with my guy friends and scream at spiders I find lifting couches. I have to wonder if the feminists of the last century meant not to create a society in which men can become strippers or women can vie for presidency, but rather to establish one in which my fellow females are required to forgo feeling “womanly” and men must ignore the assets we were born with.

In retrospect, I applaud the Martlet for continuing to publish such exquisitely informative articles. The past couple of years have really shown me just what types of individual expression and freedoms my fore“mothers” fought for in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It’s liberating to know that I can count on the women of UVic to be just as outraged as I am upon being checked out. How dare men appreciate my fashion sense or styled hair?

Stations

Arrivals

Two visible clocks? Check. Grease stained, gum smeared cement floors? Check. Well used vending machine? Check. And – oh, look! – the couple making out. They’re my favourite part. Awkward, I know, but watching kids lock braces somehow beats staring at train station floors for three hours. After all, I’d already named every trampled, grey piece of gum I’d seen and pushed a mountain range of cigarette butts together with my feet (being sure to avoid Lucy, Rex, Godzilla and friends); there was nothing more novel to find here than at any other station.

I was mid-adventure and ready to move on. I’d been waiting on my connection from Berlin’s Hauptbahnhof to my grandmother in Prague since noon and the end of platform 12 had not gotten any more exciting as the sun had come down. I expected the long wait but, this being the sixth time in two weeks that I’d had to sprawl over my luggage for a seat, I’d gotten somewhat bored of naming gum and memorizing train schedules. Though, on the bright side, this station’s schedules were yellow and blue, just like the ones in Switzerland.

**************

I was fifteen when I first remember experiencing a real train station; not the day to day, inner-city, light-rail transit BS I’d grown up with, but one that connected not only cities, but entire countries. My new host mother and I were lugging everything I owned and a pair of skis through the tunnels beneath Zurich airport, dodging people until we found our platform. I hadn’t thought that the first thing I’d be doing off the plane was finding my way to a train, nor had I ever imagined a train station could be so… station like. Ducking our way through crowds determined to get somewhere, all I managed were glances from the back of my host mother’s head to the rows of business yellow schedules and billboards along the halls. The platforms were endless, everything was Swiss standard clean, and I had a million questions to ask the woman I hardly knew in front of me. What on earth was a “Gleis?” Wasn’t I here to learn French? How long was the train ride? Where were we going to be living? Like hell I could have even asked; instead, I swung my 45 pound suitcase into the carriage after her and informed her that, “Le train, c’est grand.”

**************

Stepping off the train and into the dry, orange heat of Barcelona’s Estación de Tren years later, I walked into my next adventure. Here, I was alone and eager to test the limits of my Spanish vocabulary. Voices echoed from floor to three story ceiling, chattering at me in bits and pieces as I made my way down the long platform, clutching my purse to my chest and staring at the dark women around me. God, I hoped I was well enough dressed. Jesus, what if the job was a scam and that 6 hour train ride a waste? Not like wasting any more time to panic in front of a cracked girls’ room mirror would do me any good at this point, anyway. I paused in the main hall to reorganize my bags, took a deep breath, and continued through the evening crowds, past a graffitied vending machine, until I found the Salido and street beyond.

Connections

One of the first times I ever got right hammered, I ended my glorious evening hugging the rim of a public toilet as a friend shoved french-fries down my throat. We were killing another Friday night and all thirteen of us had congregated to hang out in the middle of the local train station, sitting on the wooden benches in front of the McDonald’s and doing what teenaged exchange students do best. We were spilling cheap vodka by 9 and drunk by 9:30. Our group got rambunctious, throwing made-up French and bad grammar at each other until we echoed between the tire-sized clock and the arrivals board at the end of the fluorescent hall. This being Switzerland though, nobody said a damned thing until I ran to the garbage can, sticking my head sideways through the open slots, and tried to vomit inside unsuccessfully.

**************

I’d been fanning myself with a folded piece of my itinerary for the last twenty minutes, staring out the window to watch an older madame leaning on the sandy brick ledge and dragging at her smoke. Why had they even bothered with the “No Smoking” sign? By the time I got off the train, not a single one of the dozen smoking passengers prowling the platform could care less about the palm-sized sign, nor the announcement reminding them that smoking in train stations was no longer legal in France. I had abandoned my bags on the train and, wiping at the sweat sitting beneath my hairline, decided to abandon the heat too. Glass doors parted as I entered the air conditioned building, revealing a giant board of arrivals and departures with more empty slots than there were platforms outside. Apparently there had been an “accident of persons” ahead of us that needed to be scraped off the tracks and we all would be waiting for hours thanks to the inconsiderate asshole. I had people to meet and places to discover – just not very quickly. So I wandered into the dusty streets of town but, seeing nothing save a few sandy, crooked buildings and a bank machine, I went back to my platform. Leaning into a corner shaded from the midday sun, I lit a smoke to kill time.

**************

We were supposed to be traveling from the pyramids in Cairo to the temples in Luxor and the train was late. The air smelled like garbage. The people were too pushy. And what did he mean there were no bathrooms? I had come with a tour group and was doing everything I could to make it look as though I hadn’t. I had dragged my bags across the stained floors to the far wall of the crowded platform and sat on top of them, arranging my purse underneath me and my sweater across every open piece of skin I had to avoid foreign scrutiny. Even from here, my shorts-clad group was just as conspicuous against the robes and full suits of the local Muslims as a herd of cattle in a grocery store. I sighed, leaning back against the cement to watch the group buddy up with our tour guide. It was the only way I was going to see Egypt, so be damned if I had to be seen in public places moo-ing sweetly at whatever was put in front of me. I just hoped that no one would start vocally craving McDonald’s in the middle of the local station crowd before we managed to get onto the train and out of sight. I glanced at my watch again and turned to the nearest billboard, decidedly examining Arabic advertising.

Departures

She wasn’t quite sure I would make the train on time; even once we were there thirty five minutes early, coffee in hand, and seated on the very platform I was to depart from. There were maybe two other people, a Czech guard and an accepted silence hanging on the open-air cement. Save, of course, my grandmother’s hopes that I work hard in school, wishes that my brothers and parents were doing well, and occasional speculations as to whether the train was even coming that morning. Though that was quickly answered as a shaking carriage pulled up in front of the wooden bench my grandma and I had gotten comfortable on. We’d been up late last night, drinking that last bottle of wine and wondering where we might like to go next, if either of us made it there. Her soft arm in mine, I walked her to my door and once she’d confirmed my cabin with the guard and watched me put away my luggage, I stepped down from the carriage to say goodbye to her and Prague for what I hoped would not be the last time. Cheeks red with her lipstick, I left to sit at the next window from the door, and waved until I couldn’t see her standing on the concrete ledge anymore.

**************

He tottered towards us down the platform, hollering back to his friends before stopping to lean on the bright red vending machine beside us and ask us where we were from. A bottle popped out of his bag, open and far from full. I looked him over and raised an eyebrow; he was way too fucking scrawny to be able to drink that much. He had appeared just as me and my girlfriends were getting off the train, on our way to raise hell and lower expectations, and admitted he’d overheard our English on the train in to town. Then I told him I was Canadian and he got excited, smashing a hand against the plastic window of the machine with a “noo way.” He was too and he was determined to show a fellow countryman a good time, so we exchanged numbers in the glowing, late night lights of the station hall before heading our separate ways.

He stayed with his family in Switzerland after I went back to mine; graduating high school, working his way through law school, and perfecting the art of lighting a joint with a full glass in hand. A few scattered reunions later, we stood lounging against the grey railings of a different station, my bags between us, as we worked out just where and when we would meet next. It would have to be somewhere, sometime, for some sort of awesome adventure; who gave a shit about the specifics. The train rolled in, cutting us off from a billboard of Venice we’d just been contemplating, and he heaved my bags to me once I’d gotten inside. Dangling out of the train door into the morning air, I gave him a peck as he stood in front of a blue and yellow schedule to thank him for his hospitality, only to be yelled at.

“No, no! We’ve got to do this properly!” he said, kissing my right, left, and then right cheek again before jumping back onto the smudged concrete. I stood with my face pressed between blurred handprints as the train pulled out and mouthed another à bientôt !