Welcome! to Conversations with Lady E.

What a delight to have you on board.


Volume 1 takes a look at four main areas of interests:

• Misplaced Perception
• Confusion Leads to Chaos
• In the Zone with Lady E: Movie ReView
• Excerpts from My upcoming Novels

A CASE OF MISPLACED PERCEPTION (part 1)

I do not believe in that cliché: “what a man can do, a woman can do even better.” Rather, I believe that any human being who sets his heart to doing anything productive will excel at it. But I do see how the only option (that was most powerful in the short run for women at the start of the fight for women’s rights) was that, for women to established their right and be recognised for their worth, they had to quickly prove how well they can ‘compete’ with men in fields long dominated by the male species.

Now that women have ‘fought for equal rights’, I believe that somehow along the line, the women suffrage that began before 1900s and most significantly after the 1980s seems to me to have lost its steam. Why? Because it is not so much about the rights – women already have it – rather it is so much about the recognition and treatment perception of those rights.

Do you know why women issues will always be on the front burner of news and social discuss? It is because of how men, in the majority, still want to perceive women and how they want women to be treated. It is this perception that’s at the core of the chant for women’s right.

From India to Britain. Nigeria to Australia. From Italy to United Arab Emirates. By Christians and Muslims. By Atheists and Traditionalists. Even by pagans alike. In monogamy or polygamy, in partnerships and courtships, the perception of women cuts across. The only difference is perhaps the degree and individual case studies that are sometimes far and in-between. Nonetheless, assumptions of the perception of women still exist.

Women from creation are liberated persons. But ‘society’ (that long dictated by the patriarchs) sort instead to define women’s perception by ensuring that they change the perception of women in their liberated state. And I must say they succeeded. That however changed when the women suffrage reached its height turning the tables a little, to create the balance. The fight for the rights of women did gain momentum and great changes have since been recorded. But the perception of how women should be treated still lingered in the most unlikely places. 

Thus, once again the women are raising their voices. Many are beginning to be tired of playing the ‘good woman’, ‘the submissive one’, ‘the obedient one’ especially at their own cost as can be seen in what happened a week ago in Pakistan in the case of Farzana Parveen who was beaten and stoned to death by 20 male relatives – in the name of "honour killing"– because she decided to marry a man not chosen for her by her family. Today, the cry by women in countries where barbaric acts such as these has reached its peak is reawakening the hot topic of the recognition of a woman’s right.

Figure 1: Symbol for Women Liberation. Source: Commons.Wikimedia.Org

Oh yes, that’s the koko of the matter. That is the gravy that makes the casserole tastes so delicious we yearn for the warmth and satisfaction it will give us. And that brings me to the crucial issue: why would someone like Monica Lewinsky have to be the scapegoat in a situation where there was mutual consent? Why should it be difficult for her to be hired or not called for interviews for jobs she’s very qualified for? And for that matter, is it ok for a Prince in Britain to be free to marry whom he wants after divorce but it’s such a biggy – a taboo of sorts – for the Princess not to marry whomever she wants?

A male friend of mine told me the answer is because Monica and the Princess where so up there in the social ladder that any man or company who dares ‘accept’ them would not survive. In the case of the Princess, it would be ‘who is that man better than the Prince?’ My friend further explains “His business will certainly suffer a blow from what is considered a perceived negative attachment to any of the women as ‘word will get around’ and so, somehow, his business will begin to crumble because everyone who wants to deal with him will always first ask: “So how’s this relationship of yours with the Princess or Monica doing?””

In other words, those who have been long standing business clients will forget about the business and now focus on the gist about his relationship or even marriage to the woman of that calibre. Even newer clients who want to do business, come not because they’re really interested in the business, but do so because they're more interested in getting the inner scoop! Thus, In the Princess's case, only someone like Dodi who is a Prince in his own right and from a different race, religion and thinking will qualify to ‘marry’ her. But even then, it seems it came at a very hefty price, (if the conclusion reached is in fact proven beyond all reasonable doubt).

Are you seeing what I’m pondering?

What does this tell us about how men think in relation to other men? When is a conquest really a conquest to a man?

My analysis of this continues in part 2...