Alias Grace

 

    Just finished watching this gem on Netflix, and it made me think. The world is safest now than ever and this period piece has made it much clearer than I ever cared to realise. Grace, Mary, and even a character as unlikeable as Nancy were all victims of the times they lived in. Though the storyline itself is fiction, the series depicts the reality of how women were treated back then. It disturbed me how at the end of the series, I implicitly got to see and understood how even the seemingly kindhearted men (dr Simon Jordan and James Walsh) took pleasure in the stories of Grace's torture and misfortune, they all liked the idea of coming in as her saviour, more so than actually saving her. Even at the end, when things seemed to have settled, Grace's role was in serving and pleasing the man she ended up with. The most devastating part is, considering how terrible her life had been up to that point, the ending was good enough to be considered her "happy ending."

    Moving on to another gem I watched months ago, the kind of story I wish is fiction but is not. The story portrayed in the miniseries "Unbelievable" can't be excused with "those were dark times" as it happened during the so-called safest time to be alive. Women are still facing the same fear every day, we still face the same enemies as we did back then, and a lot of us are still considered second class citizens.

    It's a coincidence that with these thoughts pondering in my mind, came to light two stories of women in Indonesia being unjustly treated by the men in their lives, one caused a woman to be put in a wheelchair and the other resulted in death. These aren't even the tip of the icebergs, thousands of other stories don't make it to the light of day. And again, let me stress, this is considered the safest time for women to live in the history of the world. We clearly still have a long way to go.   

    I feel the need to clarify that a part of me feels like I have no right to complain as most of my life I have been blessed with safety and a good surrounding (the worst I face these days are catcalls in the streets, and I pray to God it never exceeds that). However, I do have the right to speak in solidarity with women out there who are less fortunate than I am, and I take that chance. We still have a long way to go, that is true, but we must always remember that we have also come this far. We can go further. We will go further.