Yesterday when I sat down at the computer expecting to go about my normal business of glancing through the news headlines, checking email, and reading blog updates, I was crestfallen to see the news that Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated. I think crestfallen has to be the right word here because I wasn't just sad - for her family, for her supporters, and for the sate of of her country - I was heartbroken. I sighed out loud and felt a very large lump in my throat.
Honestly it bothered me that I had such a reaction to the news. I didn't know much about her except for what I had read in the news - that her father was executed for being a revolutionary, that she studied at Oxford, that she came back to Pakistan, the country that killed her father, to make a difference, that she succeeded in becoming the elected prime minister of Pakistan (the first in a Muslim state, a feat that our "progressive" country has yet to accomplish) twice, and that she was running against Musharraf for a third term. I know that she was working toward stabilizing the country and that she was fighting for that lucrative democracy - that which we think we know, but that we are all struggling to define. So, I know the book report version of her life, as opposed to her actual political voice. Why, then, was I so sad?
What unnerves me about this circumstance has relatively little to do with the government of Pakistan. I mean it does bother me in that I'm curious to see what will happen next, especially since the the ones who did the attacking got what they wanted - an unstable, chaotic, emotionally charged, (nuclear armed) state. But mostly I think what bothers me is that SHE - a woman - was assassinated.
Hemingway touched on the uncomfortable idea of a woman being unnaturally dead (killed in war) in "A Natural History of the Dead," a graphic satire told from the perspective of a naturalist who is observing the dead from an intellectual, scientific perspective. In it the narrator says, "Regarding the sex of the dead it is a fact that one becomes so accustomed to the sight of all the dead being men that the sight of a dead woman is quite shocking. I first saw the inversion of the usual sex of the dead after the explosion of a munitions factory...we were ordered to search the immediate vicinity and surrounding fields for bodies. We found and carried to an improvised mortuary a good number of these and, I must admit, frankly, the shock of it was to find that these dead were women rather than men. In those days women had not yet commenced to wear their hair cut short...and the most disturbing thing, perhaps because it was the most unaccustomed, was the presence and, even more disturbing, the occasional absence of this long hair."
Whether we like it or not, it is harder to see a dead woman. Somehow, either because women, in a patriarchy, are the "weaker, more vulnerable sex" who need "protecting", or because in a matriarchy they are the sacred,the wise, the life-worthy, it is more difficult to stomach the idea of an assassinated woman. I lean more toward the matriarchal way of thinking mixed with the primitive idea that women are extremely valuable when compared with the expendable man (the 'it only takes one or two men to populate an entire clan, but it takes several women to be the child bearers, the nurturers, the community creators' idea). Or maybe because we live in a patriarchal world where the men are the decision makers, the arguers, the creators of instability, etc. it doesn't seem too atrocious that men are also the ones who are assassinated. Assassinated women are simply out of place.
Let me be clear.
I'm not saying that I hate men and that it is acceptable for them to die or that women should not go to battle or serve and die for their countries.
All unnatural death is horrifying, regardless of sex.
But I would argue that it's right that women should lead because the feminine ideals - which include wisdom, fair judgement, and the inherent need for universal balance - are far superior to the masculine traits of war-mongering and dominance. We are all made up of varying degrees of both masculine and feminine qualities and it is possible for a man to tap in to his feminine qualities. It is also right for women to be leaders, though it seems most difficult for them in a patriarchal (and therefore lacking) society. Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth knows she has to relinquish her feminine qualities ("...unsex me here,/ and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ of direst cruelty...") in order to gain power by helping her husband murder the king. This is a perverse request. Grotesque. Unnatural. But it is what she has to do in order to rule in a patriarchy.
For whatever reason, we haven't figured out how to wholly manifest our feminine characteristics in the patriarchy. That in itself is very bothersome.
From what I understand of her, Benazir Bhutto did not relinquish her femininity to lead like some women (Hilary Clinton for example) most obviously do. Therefore it seems right for the people in Pakistan, a country very much rooted in patriarchy, to adore her and mourn her passing. And maybe that's why it is OK for me, a woman, to mourn too.
Her assassination is a sad atrocity. What a loss. What a loss.
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