Hex

by Jenni Fagan

A woman’s voice is a hex. She must learn to exalt men always. If she doesn’t do that, then she is a threat. A demon whore, a witch – so says everyone and the law.

– We try to look bigger than we are sometimes. At other times we have to be smaller than we are. We do other things. Try to take down governments. Make great art. Keep others. Work without anyone noticing what we do for whole lifetimes sometimes. We hold hands. Drink too much or not at all. We traverse boundaries whilst looking ordinary. We give beauty and patience and science and our talent and our hearts and what was once firm in our bodies – we bestow our lives to this world, most often unseen.

Education does not teach what should be taught.

Girls learn to shine in secret. We learn there are many reasons not to draw the eyes of men towards us; and if we do, there can be no gain in it. We dip our head first. We are meant to not raise our gaze, and that has been bored into us for centuries. We are meant to never let a look appear too direct. Don’t be confrontational. Play nice – so nobody kills you.

Put those heels away. That click, click, click, click is Morse code for rapists. It says their sentences will be lenient or non-existent. If only she didn’t wear stilettos. If only she didn’t walk through a park. If only she didn’t go out at night. If only those smart, brilliant sisters had realised police officers would later take selfies by their dead bodies.

I think about the things that Iris says, that every man is taught he is the closest representation of God on earth. Every man knows the more powerful he is, the closer he is to God, the person that made the universe, so they act with the faith of men who believe the Creator is behind them, or so they say. Who can argue with a man who has the backing of a being who made the cosmos?

The absolute absence of light wants its opposite. So it can consume it.

I have always been polite. I’m not a stupid girl. I know to say yes when I am asked to do a thing, only yes and thank you and of course and I’d be glad to and please allow me! I’m sorry. I say I’m sorry. I turn sideways in a hallway to let someone pass and press myself flat so they can get enough room to ride a bloody horse past and I say I am sorry. I must be sorry, therefore I am. Those were my allocated words, given at birth, pinned on my crib so I’d know.

My goodness, my heart, my ability to heal. That doesn’t make me a witch. Just as his poverty and debt and disease and desire to destroy all that is good do not make him an agent of God. Still, I sit here convicted, and he sleeps with a pot of gold.

They tortured me in the room that David Seaton had asked me to clean extra thoroughly that morning.

How many times have boys’ eyes (even the nicest ones) looked back at you, knowing with utter certainty that they are right and you are wrong?