An Apology

Woman. I apologize. If no one has yet, I do. The world owes you an apology for the way it has treated you (continues to). Was it the arrogance of the male gender and the sweetness of yours that made it possible? The childiness of men and your maturity? I do not know. But I know the world needs to say sorry.

Even in the name we gave you, we disrespected you. "Woman" literally means "woman-man," as if we had to annex that male gender word to yours to make you whole. "Femme" means the one who bears children (think of "foetus"), as if that is all we thought you should be. "Lady" means "maker of dough" while "lord" means "guardian of dough." Ironic isn't it? Since we only recently started viewing you as the bread maker. And not everywhere. Even more ironic is that the Arab world's original "woman" is respectfully just the female human being (mar' means human being and mar'a is the feminine human being), until of course it created other derogatory terms to indicate your role such as "hareem."

So yes. On this day, the world owes you an apology. For all the wrongs it did you, for all the times it told you how to use your body or how it should look, for all the times it thought you deserved less compensation for the same work as your male counterpart, for all the times it deprived you from education, jobs or love, the times it took you against your will, the times it spoke and starred at you against your will, the times it thought you inferior, sorry.
I hope that one day you will be able to forgive men, maybe even yourself, for all that which will become history, one day, and on that day we will all celebrate you, the way you should be celebrated, with every waking breath of anyone who ever came out of your wombs, with gratitude and admiration, with love and humility, maybe then you will allow us to sit beside you and be your equal.

-- Georges Naasan - My very dear friend.