"AS A WOMAN I WAS TAUGHT TO ALWAYS BE HUNGRY"

I was going to follow some sort of format/structure but decided to throw that out since it impedes my writing process! This blog is about culture and whatever so that gives me free reign to jump from topic to topic.

I am a fan of one particular album by Mos Def entitled “Black on Both Sides.” It’s smart music, I like what Mos Def has to say. Check it out. One of my favorite songs is “Know That,” which features both Mos Def and Talib Kweli. In one instance, Talib Kweli declares, “I follow the code of honor like a real man gonna, Never disrespect no women cause I love my momma.”

Wow. I LOVE IT. It’s a very positive message from a talented artist and I think that many men in my community would do well to heed that message.

Which brings me to my next topic: violence, particularly violence against women…violence against Indigenous women. It’s a problem in my community just as it is in various other Indigenous communities worldwide.

At my job in the Maniilaq Health Center in Kotzebue I see various posters tacked around the hospital that discuss domestic violence. Well, they sort of discuss domestic violence. I don’t really like the posters because they skirt around the issue. They basically say “is someone hurting you? We can help.” Okay…that’s a start but I wonder, why don’t they just come out and say that domestic violence is wrong? It is wrong, it is hurtful and it needs to stop. I say this because one woman, who had been in abusive relationships before, had admitted to me that she didn’t know it was wrong, nobody had told her.

In my younger, angrier days, I used to listen to Bikini Kill. I listened to them a lot. It was bad-ass music. One particular song always struck a chord with me, that song was “Feels Blind.“ In one part, Kathleen Hanna belts out “As a woman I was taught to always be hungry. Yeah, women are well-acquainted with thirst. Well, I could eat just about anything. We might even eat your hate up like love.” It resonated with me because that is how I feel about my culture…at times…in general. In general, my culture is misogynistic and although it is hard to admit, it is true. Women are abused and they accept it and we accept it. It is an accepted part of reality.

It breaks my heart and angers me when I see battered women. Some of them are my friends and family members. As a friend and family member, what am I to do? It’s a complicated situation because you can’t really tell the woman what to do and you know that ultimately it is her choice to remain in an abusive relationship but at the same time you know it’s such an unhealthy situation!

This is something I struggle with and I am still finding my own voice. I’m not into policy, I’m more interested in what I can do on a personal level…and I’m still at a loss.