On Teenage Friendships

 

A bit of strategic essentialism, twisted as it may be, can be quite illuminating.

My alma mater is an elite girls’ boarding school in India and it presently has a high functioning committee that is keen on including a range of ex-students in celebrating the upcoming annual day. I am so happy to see the speakers that have been selected to inspire the current students. For any members of an educational institution, there is something really valuable to celebrate in the achievements of its alumni. Not only can it set the tone for what may be possible for the students who are currently enrolled by shaping their aspirations and dreams, it can also shape what might be considered not good enough as far as future prospects go.

This defining of future aspirations, both what is possible and permissible and also what might not be worthy of note, happens consciously and at a level of sub-text. I wish to share the subtle tensions here that worry me because they limit the scope of what might be fulfilled lives.

The speakers chosen are all career oriented, path-breaking, enterprising, driven, focussed and achievement oriented and definitely very deserving. Of course these are not traditionally female characteristics. What is therefore amazing about the speakers is that they all seem to embody masculine characteristics successfully and phenomenally, none of them seem to exhibit anything feminine at all, as far as what they project on their biography. So in effect, what is on show is masculine females.

The biographical information is written in an eager emulation of masculine biographies, which deny any relationships, support or context for achievements. Do these women have families? What are these like? Who has supported them in their achievements? None of this is evident in the published biographies. This worries me. It worries me not because what is feminine is derided, by being excluded, in the way these biographies are written, and this is a loss for us all.

In addition, no one who does not do productive work in the labour economy has been selected to speak. This is again a great loss for all of us. There are several women who do not engage in ‘productive’, salary driven work. What they do is called ‘reproductive’ work, and this is not merely the reproduction of babies but reproducing social life, reproducing the daily -contexts that can ensure that others can achieve. There are many alumni who do not ‘work’, who instead ‘care’. They may be caring for their children, or for their elderly relatives, or they may be carrying the load of running a household, all of which can be quite purposeful and fulfilling. The care economy is not financially rewarding or socially seen as a useful way to spend time in, after one has been educated. This is a great loss to us all.

My former school has many girls who are bound to family traditions, and will never have a financial reason to need to earn. There are many girls in the school who may not have a traditional career at the end of their education. This is indeed a privilege and yet they need to find ways of living fulfilling lives. Do we mock the Queen of England for spending her time cutting ribbons? Do we think Kate Middleton has a lesser life for she does not have a career? Further, whoever said that participating in capitalism was the way to freedom? There are many many many layers of questions that this can open up for all of us.

Not everyone will agree with what I have written. Many might try and find proof in the speaker selection and biographies that what I am saying is pertinently not true. However, I know that I am writing about a sub-text that most might not even catch and I am not about to enter any arguments about it. If you cannot see the value of this, I am sorry to have wasted your time. If you do see the pertinence and necessity of allowing all different forms of living to be validated, I am glad to have been party to that.

Fulfilling lives are not the same thing as masculine lives. How will anything change if we all seek to simply become the same as those that most need to change?

I celebrate the women who are going to speak and I hope that they will celebrate their femininity, their feminisms, their contexts and locations, and their successes, as much as they will celebrate their masculinity, when they meet and speak to the girls who will be the women of the future.