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Krvava sloboda
Historian's Notebook: Amenábar has one of Hypatia’s students Orestes fall in love with her. He corners her in the library to press his suit, where she suggests that he choose another muse—music. He then declares his love for her and praises her beauty in a public theater where he plays an original musical piece and presents his pipes to Hypatia. During their next class, Hypatia hands Orestes a “present” in return—a handkerchief stained with her menstrual blood—and asks, “Is there any beauty in that?” Humiliated, Orestes storms out.
Amenábarova „Agora“. Nakon što je zaljubljeni student prosidbom u javnosti - a suprotno njenim osjećajima - praktički stjera u kut, matematičarka, astronomka i filozofkinja Hipatija mu sljedeći dan uručuje krpu (uložak) zamrljanu menstrualnom krvlju da ga otrijezni od njegove opijenosti.
(Ovdje očekujem poslovičnog (an)alfa/beta da komentira Hipatijin postupak kao urotu zločestih droljastih feminističkih žena protiv sirotih nedužnih muškaraca.)
Helen King,The history of menstruation: „Hypatia threw her menstrual cloths – in Jacques Ferrand’s early seventeenth-century version, which Sara* used, the Latin is pannus menstruus – at an unwanted suitor, presumably to put him off his idealised image of her by confronting him with the realities of the female body.“
*Bilješka sebi: Sara Read, “‘Thy righteousness is but a menstrual clout’: sanitary practices and prejudice in early modern England”
*Bilješka sebi: Sara Read, “‘Thy righteousness is but a menstrual clout’: sanitary practices and prejudice in early modern England”
Nevjerojatna priča. Fascinantna žena. I s obzirom na njen tragičan kraj, ne nužno vezan uz anegdotu, očito da su je za života doživljavali ludom i opasnom.
Sjetih se te sličice o Hipatiji jer sam ovih dana naletjela na priču BBC-a, The unlikely sanitary pad missionary, o jednoj drugoj fascinantnoj ženi, britanskoj učiteljici joge Amy Peake, koja se gledajući prizore očajnih izbjeglica zapitala što i mnoge druge žene - kako se izbjegle žene snalaze kad imaju menstruaciju? Njena odluka da im pomogne ispisala je još jednu nevjerojatnu priču o potrazi za jeftinim i svim ženama (napose ženama u izbjegličkim kampovima diljem svijeta) dostupnim ulošcima.
Pri tom je Amy kucajući na razna vrata, za očekivati, doživjela kojekakve reakcije:
„One man laughed in her face - he thought she was crazy. And none of the big humanitarian agencies returned her calls.
But Peake is nothing if not tenacious, and after six months of this she decided to just go for it.
First, she decided to seek some official backing from a charity - maybe this would help her get taken seriously? Step up the St Austell Rotary Club. This group of gents, average age 70, were not entirely comfortable discussing periods - "I made the chairman blush just by shaking his hand," says Peake - but they gave her their blessing.“
Amy, eto, ima više sreće od ubijene Hipatije da je poneki smatraju samo ludom. Život u koliko-toliko manje zatucanoj sredini osigurava živu glavu na ramenima i određeni broj otvorenih umova, iako im je neugodno do crvenjenja (Jer, pst-pst, o tome se u društvu otvoreno ne priča, to su, naime, ne jednom čuh - „ženski problemi“). No nije svaka sredina manje zatucana.
„There are still many taboos around menstruation in India. Women can't visit temples or public places, they're not allowed to cook or touch the water supply - essentially they are considered untouchable.“
Potraga ju je uskoro odvela u daleku Indiju do tzv. Menstrualnog čovjeka, Arunachalam Murugananthama, fascinantnog muškarca lude hrabrosti ili hrabre ludosti, a nadasve vizije: The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary. "Postoje muškarci koji se zgrče (op. useru) na spomen ženske menstruacije. A postoji i Muruganantham", kaže početak njegove priče.
Menstrual Man: There are men who squirm...
„Muruganantham was a school dropout from a poor family in southern India. In 1998 he saw his wife was hiding something from him and was shocked to discover what it was - rags, "nasty cloths" which she used during menstruation. She told him sanitary pads were too expensive, so he set about inventing a simple machine to make them cheaply. It was a long process - he nearly lost his family, his money and his place in society.“
Na trenutke strašna a na trenutke urnebesna, priča o čovjeku koji je svojoj ženi (a potom i svim siromašnim ženama Indije) odlučio omogućiti jeftine uloške koje će proizvoditi same, čita se kao najnapetiji roman o hrabrosti pojedinca, nadahnuću, genijalnosti, upornosti, razbijanju tabua, predrasuda, tradicije, običaja i posljedičnom društvenom oslobađanju žena.
„Finding volunteers to test his products was no mean feat. His sisters refused, so he had the idea of approaching female students at his local medical college. "But how can a workshop worker approach a medical college girl?" Muruganantham says. "Not even college boys can go near these girls!"
...
It was then that he decided to test the products on himself. "I became the man who wore a sanitary pad," he says.
...
He walked, cycled and ran with the football bladder under his traditional clothes, constantly pumping blood out to test his sanitary pad's absorption rates. Everyone thought he'd gone mad.“
Ni siroti Muruganantham, eto, nije u svom društvu izbjegao dijagnozu ludila, no s obzirom na što mu se spremalo, dobro je i prošao:
„The villagers became convinced he was possessed by evil spirits, and were about to chain him upside down to a tree to be "healed" by the local soothsayer. He only narrowly avoided this treatment by agreeing to leave the village. It was a terrible price to pay. "My wife gone, my mum gone, ostracised by my village" he says. "I was left all alone in life."“
Ostavila ga žena, napustila majka (Jer što će reći selo?), a na koncu pod prijetnjom linča izopćilo i selo, nije mu bilo lako. No od uložaka i njihove jeftine proizvodnje nije odustao, jer riječima njegove žene Shanti:
"Every time he comes to know something new, he wants to know everything about it," she says. "And then he wants to do something about it that nobody else has done before."
Stvaralački nerv je bio jači. A Amy je pokretao jednako snažan osjećaj svrhe: "It was one of those scary moments where that purpose that you have been looking for all your life is staring you right in the face".
I tako su Muruganantham i Amy ispisali priču u jednakoj mjeri filmsku kao "Agora".
Što htjedoh reći?
Pa čini mi se kako Muruganantham i Amy s Hipatijom ne povezuje samo komad platna umrljanog menstrualnom krvlju, koliko žar i gotovo znanstvena opsjednutost - slobodom (uma, pojedinca s obzirom na spol, pojedinca u društvu, pojedinca s obzirom na spol u društvu).
Post je objavljen 10.12.2015. u 00:01 sati.