unconventional women
One of the things that plagues my insomniac nights is my personality. Some of the adjectives that have been used to describe me, things I had repressed to the depths of my memories buzz at my ears, an invisible fly I can’t quite swat away.
“Too opinionated.”
“Too headstrong.”
“Too bossy.”
“Too independent.”
“Too snarky.”
“Too smart for her own good.”
“Too bitchy.”
As insecurities tend to haunt the graveyard of sleep, I inexplicably connect the dots from these adjectives to still not having a husband, children, and a home at 31; my longest “goals” of being married at 27 and a mum at 29, shattered glass as the pressure to fit in to society’s conventions sits heavy on my chest.
During one such rumination, as the ghosts of my self-doubts danced on the graves of my fantasies and flitted between headstones, my great-grandmother crossed my mind. My great-grandmother, who became a single parent when she was widowed at the age of seventeen. My great-grandmother, who soon after marrying off her daughter, at an age that’s probably close to the age I am right now, moved into the sathiram (a public resting place) her father had bequeathed her. My great-grandmother, who spent the rest of her life active, capable, and independent, raising and selling cows for a living. Alone. My mum always says she had a lot of opinions for someone who was relatively closed off from the world.
Her daughter, my grandmother, was described as “headstrong” by the doctor who treated her after her third stroke. My grandmother, who wasn’t the cowering bride in her wedding photographs, didn’t break eye contact when talking to men. A cousin described her speech, which was in clipped tones to show she didn’t have time for your nonsense, as “snarky” to my horror. My grandmother, who got her daughters to learn a trade like sewing or knitting, because she considered it important to make some money for yourself, no matter how little and told the people who claimed she should be marrying them off instead to shut it. My grandmother, who told her daughters to keep an identity and some money, separate from their husband.
Her daughter, my mother, moved to Singapore as a wide-eyed twenty-five-year-old who ventured out of the confines of her hometown once on a school trip. My mother, who set aside her disappointment when her hard-earned teaching diploma from India couldn’t be recognised in Singapore, archiving her dreams, so she could channel all her efforts towards her two daughters instead. My mother, who shifted gears to set up a small home-based sewing business for herself and regularly watches YouTube videos (now Instagram Reels as well) to update her sewing skills when she realised the gap in her resume was far too glaring. My mother, who puts her heart in everything she does, having the incredible ability to think of the small details and the big picture.
The weight of these women’s feats sits heavy on my shoulders. I realise, I am the women who came before me. And I ask myself, would they want me to shrink myself so I was small enough to be unseen, unheard, and thus unencumbered by my supposedly dashed hopes? Would they want me to keep my head down to bow down to a system I don’t believe in? Would they want me to contort the dreams, small and big, I have for my career?
I hear the most deafening “No” that I’m sure is not from my inner voice. I wonder if it’s all of them, including my great-great-grandmother who ran the rice mill her husband left her as its boss. Was she the one who sowed the seeds of generational strength? (I still can’t process this. My great-great-grandmother’s husband left her an entire rice mill so she could have an income. A century and a half ago.)
It’s incredible to me that both my great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother lived illustrious lives long after their husbands passed during times the wellbeing and respect of women were placed on their husbands. All four generations of women before me found ways to exist in societies that demands convention without compromising and “adjusting” who they are. If confidence is partly genetic and thus hereditary, as someone with the education, financial independence, and an abundance of choices that none of them were afforded, what exactly am I bitching about now then?
My grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother had all passed by the time I was ten. I wish they had written down their lives, I wish I could meet them and hear their perspectives. But I suppose all I have now is the strength that I’m their granddaughter, the fifth generation of unconventional women. And with that, I’ll build a fortress around my sense of self-worth, one I determined, not anyone else. That gives me hope, just as dawn breaks. I get up, ready to face another day.
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