A few weeks ago, while on holiday at my parent's home, we bought a little pink-yellow female canary. My mother and father already had five male canaries wandering around in the big patio. There are huge bamboo trees and plenty of space to fly and feel as closer to nature as possible. The little girly-bird arrived and she was named Paris. The vet told us that her pinkish colour was the result of a very low protein intake. However, it was her colour that allowed us to set her apart from her male counterparts.
On her first day at home, Paris behaved as expected: quiet shy, sitting in a corner eating cake, seeds and fruit and not leaving the cage as the others. The next day, she ventured outside. We all wanted to see the reaction of the five male birds who on the previous days to Paris's arrival, were singing loudly every day. However, they ignored her but something changed: they stopped singing.
The third day, Paris became more adventurous, flying high among the trees and already developing an attitude of: I´m free!
The following weeks were a spectacle. Paris flew over and over and over from one side of the patio to the other. Endlessly, happy, singing (although the fact that the vet told us that girly-birds don't sing). As the boy-birds had stopped singing, we were even happier to have Paris with us, even if her songs were a little quieter than the boys´.
As she jumped and flew and sang and stole the cake from the other birds, we looked at the male canaries watching, in the distance. Even the youngest ones, seemed old and tired by her side. It made me think about my own experience working as a trainee many years ago in a place full of older men. I was so energetic, enthusiastic, so filled with energy, that would make the men around look like true skeletons waiting for a departure to other dimensions.
Then something gradually started to happen. Paris became shyer. At the beginning, the change was unnoticeable, but day by day, she stopped jumping and flying and singing. She became like all the other birds. And then it dawned on me: are we women, minority women in a male´s world, victims of the same protocol that nature exhibits? We are after all members of the animal kingdom, and the female reaction of a female bird, wouldn't be any different than the instinctive reaction of a female human.
So I wondered, did Paris out of the blue realized that her singing, and her flying and her energy were not making any difference in that place. All the male birds seemed united in their silence, somehow disapproving of the outburst of energy of the new bird in the block. I remembered as a younger woman going through the very same situation. Facing the condemning faces of grey coloured men disapproving of the endless energy of the new girl in the block. As I grow older and wiser, I ask myself if my behavior reminded those men of what it felt to be young, to be free, not being afraid to show emotions and colour in your life.
And then I figured something out. I decided to pay more attention to Paris than the rest of the birds. I bought her pink toys, a pink beauty mirror (perhaps cliché but I just thought that pink will remind her that she was not the only girl in the house). I talked to her when she was sad, and I reprimanded the boys for isolating Paris so much. And then something changed. Paris began flying again, eating more again, becoming more daring every day. She looked less afraid and somehow I think she demonstrated that she could be the alpha female in a world of males. And then suddenly too, the boy birds started to follow her way and move around and fly more and be just simply more adventurous.
And then I reached a conclusion. I never had anybody to do for me what I did for Paris. A powerful hand that would show support and care. It was my inner strength facing a world of men, most of them old fashioned, boxed in their mentality of "we love women in the kitchen". Then I realized the sad, grey figures of so many older women, successful in their jobs, and quite ghostly in the street. Looking sad, almost insane, as if their female strength would have been sucked by a vampire. Women who chose, perhaps forced by the circumstances, to abandon that wittyness, that fantastic spirit of what makes us women.
I think Paris, the girly bird, may have actually been luckier than many women in the world trying to make it in a world of men.
Who is there to lend a hand to all those strong and vibrant women?
Who is there to remind them that they can actually, with a little support, change their whole environment for good?
What do you think?
Are you the free bird flying and singing happy through life, or are your wings cut by the invisible imbalance of simply being alone in a place where you know you can make a difference, but you actually are not allowed to?
Tell me who you are and how we can change this.
Maria Carolina Cruz
