Tlotlo Tsamaase

Womb City

—Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi

Lindsay

He said to the police, “Don’t let her go. She’s a criminal, a killer.”

And they asked me, “Is what he says true?”

“I am a killer, but I’ve committed no crime. Like you, I kill only criminals.”

“But he is a prince, and a hero. He’s not a criminal.”

“For me the feats of kings and princes are no more than crimes, for I do not see things the way you do.”

“You are a criminal,” they said, “and your mother is a criminal.”

“My mother was not a criminal. No woman can be a criminal. To be a criminal one must be a man.”

“Now look here, what is this that you are saying?” 

"I am saying that you are criminals, all of you: the fathers, the uncles, the husbands, the pimps, the lawyers, the doctors, the journalists, and all men of all professions.”

They said, “You are a savage and dangerous woman.”

“I am speaking the truth. And truth is savage and dangerous.”

For death and truth are similar in that they both require a great courage if one wishes to face them. And truth is like death in that it kills. When I killed I did it with truth not with a knife. That is why they are afraid and in a hurry to execute me. They do not fear my knife. It is my truth which frightens them. This fearful truth gives me great strength. It protects me from fearing death, or life, or hunger, or nakedness, or destruction. It is this fearful truth which prevents me from fearing the brutality of rulers and policemen.

So what if I was a man before I got transplanted into this body? Is it really that bad? And aren’t souls genderless?

I wish they’d stop seeing me as a woman, and maybe then I’d be free to be what I want.

“I never wanted shame or guilt to silence my truth. Fear destroys people. The world tells us to bury our emotions, use masculinity as a weapon. I wanted to be both strong and soft, but . . . I struggled.”

I sound like a cliché, and I hate it, hate it when you always have to associate the woman they’re damaging to some woman in their life for them to understand that what they’re doing is actually wrong as if they can’t realize how wrong it already is. She’s a person,

“Culture conditions us to not seek forgiveness from women,” he whispers. “That we do no wrong, that women are to blame for the damage we impose on them. Forces us to castrate our emotions.

Katheryn

I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage and dangerous. 

You're a chess piece. Accept the moves until you're the one mak8ng the moves. Why are you trying so hard to be good? I won't silence or criticize you, so be you. There's nothing wrong with wanting everything, wanting power.

The system is bad and you have to be worse to play it well.

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