A lot of things don’t make sense, and we never question why. I think a part of it is because our brains are wired to use the shortest possible cut to finish an action, so we rarely interrogate how certain things don’t really add up.
A great depiction of this came to me one afternoon on Instagram—as it usually does these days—where a man was interrogating things that did not make sense in very popular cartoons such as sponge bob, under the sea, lighting a fire; Aladin without nipples; Tom and Jerry deciding to wear clothes to the beach after wearing nothing but bare bottoms throughout entire seasons, and of course Beauty bound to marry the Beast because she must have had Stockholm Syndrome. (If none of these cartoons are familiar to you, well, I don’t know what to say. Lol)
Personally, I didn’t think or notice any of these things because we were children, we didn’t have the range. Besides, they were cartoons. Cartoons are one place where reality is suspended for anything to happen.
However, now that I am an adult, cartoons are not the only things that don’t make sense. These days, I’m thinking about the idea of being ‘Independent.’ We often hear people say, ‘No man is an island’ and as humans, we are wired to seek support from the numerous systems designed to guarantee us a healthy life. We depend on financial systems to expand our buying power, we depend on social systems and communities to add value to our lives, we depend on work systems for meaning and recognition.
On the flip side, a lot of women are pressured to fit into a mound: the independent, strong, black woman who doesn’t need any help. However, looking at the way humanity has thrived over the years, that is just another thing which elicits a lot of cheers and admiration but which, lowkey, needs to be thought about more.
No one who has truly made it has ever made it independently. They have had the support of their families and communities. Moreover, women never chose to be seen as property without any rights to property and inheritance. Yet, it seems the alternative to living as a piece of property is carrying the burden of being a superwoman: strong, self-sacrificing, and free of emotion. Wearing an armour to cope with the stress of race- and gender-based discrimination on a daily basis shouldn’t be the glory of womanhood. Either side of the spectrum is just wrong and too much work. We should all be able to see and be seen as humans deserving of help and support. Even women. Especially women.
