February 26, 2004
Emancipation
by Jemma Macera
The pictures of Muslim women in their tentlike clothing, covering their faces, hair, and their whole bodies, that were constantly shown on TV, along with views of the smoldering World Trade Center, all a result of the world-changing events of September 11, 2001, acted like bells ringing in my memory, awakening a long-forgotten act of emancipation.
The year is 1967. I have been divorced for a short time. I am 32 years old, still attending sunday mass. But there are many changes. In the past three years I have been reading nonfiction. Mostly theology and philosophy. De Chardin, Father John Courtney Murray, Gregory Baum are just a few whom I recall. Much of what I read I don't understand, but that's okay. I eventually learn enough to know that I no longer want to be a member of the Catholic Church. But before I leave it, forever, I stage a one-woman act of rebellion that makes me very proud of the face I see in the mirror, whenever I look.
Hats. Wide brimmed with feathers, ribbons and bows. With or without veils. In colors matching or contrasting my coat. Doesn't matter, I love them all. Another reason for the attachment is that I feel I look better in a hat than without one. Somehow they brighten my eyes, change my looks. Give me a little height (in more ways than one).
However, by 1976 I am examining the controls our society and its institutions have over us, controls usually backed up by fear and punishment. Behave a certain way or you will be fined, imprisoned, denied burial, communion, heaven. This girl has had her fill of fear.
Then I read that we women have to wear hats to mass to cover our hair so that men aren't distracted by it. "How ridiculous," I respond. Sometimes the hats are more distracting than the hair. If men allow themselves to be disturbed, that's their problem, not mine. Who are they to inflict punishment on me for such a stupid law?
Oh! How can I give up something I love so much to gain something else that I love even more? All my beautiful hates! The winter, navy blue wool one and the wide-brimmed, straw summer hat, and the black one with the bow, and, and, and. How can I live without them? They are a part of me, like my arms and legs.
The Sunday morning did arrive when I said, "This is it. No more hats." But what will people think of me? What will they say? I remember reading stories of how women and children in small towns were ostracized if they didn't conform. The woman's neighbors and friends shunned her. The children were mistreated in school. If the husband had a business, it would be boycotted. As I walked bareheaded up the aisle to my pew, I felt naked and certain all eyes were on me.
But I did it. And you know what? No one seemed to notice.
Getting Away With Murder
She smiled and forgave him.
He raped her.
She didn't know there was anything she could do.
He abandoned them.
She had a nervous breakdown.
He refused to support them.
She went into therapy.
He tried to turn the children
against her.
She went to school.
He drank more.
She graduated magna cum laude.
He developed a brain tumor.
Her stories appeared in literary magazines.
They said the alcohol killed him
before the cancer.
She knew better.
Jemma Macera is a published writer who lives in Ithaca, NY