Experiencing life as a woman

Date: 17-09-2021

I had the most wonderful opportunity to go see a documentary on the life of the brilliant Canadian singer Alanis Morissette during TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) 2021. I want to update this article after I see the documentary one more time and can make notes.

After decades of critically observing life as a woman and having lived in various countries and cultures, I see how different yet how similar our experiences are. The stories, perspectives, and their actors change but the experiences, the insecurities, and the underlying pain are still so similar. Of course, the degree to which society gets to control and affect our lives vary for every woman, and across time and space, I see a significant similarity in the kind of control it tries to exert. a damaging kind. an intimidating kind. a belittling kind.

Whether it is

• a girl from Peshawar who is not allowed to go to school
• a girl from Sudan who is denied her own bodily autonomy and goes through genital mutilation
• a girl in Florida who is discouraged to pursue science by antiquated ideas like “nerdy or geeky girls are undesirable” or “ugly girls become nerds”
• a girl in Gujrat who has 7 sisters because her parents kept wanting a boy
• a young female scientist in Munich who is rejected for a scientific position because she is in her “baby producing years”
• an aspiring astrophysicist in Italy who gives up on her dreams because it might not be safe to travel and work at remote locations at night
• or Alanis Morissette who - entrusted to expert musicians so she can learn and explore her musical talents - is exploited in every manner

the underlying factor is always an imbalance in power, the perpetrator’s audacity to exploit it and the victim’s lifelong struggle with its consequences.