musingsonwomenshealth.com

Reflections on 40 years as a doctor in Women's Health

A piece of valiant dust?


Who listens with their ears alone is deaf. I have to admit that I love aphorisms; there’s something about the brevity that commands attention; something about the message that is often multilayered: usually understood immediately, but occasionally appreciated only in retrospect. Aphorisms are by no means a recent invention; Hippocrates supposedly coined the word for his work the Aphorisms that described and categorized illnesses. But, as my well-thumbed copy of the Encyclopedia  Britannica points out, ‘Aphorisms have been especially used in dealing with subjects that were late in developing their own principles or methodology—for example, art, agriculture, medicine, jurisprudence, and politics’: they are concise and eloquent descriptions of a truth.

And yet their often epiphanic brevity sometimes hides a different, and darker message of which I had not been aware until I happened upon an enlightening essay by Noreen Masud, a Fellow in the Department of English Studies at Durham University: https://psyche.co/ideas/there-is-nothing-so-deep-as-the-gleaming-surface-of-the-aphorism?

The aphorism, she writes ‘seems authoritative. It promises a universal truth, pithy wisdom, summed up with piercing snap. Aphorisms declaim their opinions, admitting no doubt.’ It signals ‘power, confidence and prestige.’ This was even echoed by the critic Susan Sontag: ‘Aphorism is aristocratic thinking: this is all the aristocrat is willing to tell you; he thinks you should get it fast, without spelling out all the details.’

But, ‘The qualities that make aphorisms sound aristocratic also fit them, ironically, to the uses of the powerless. Aphorisms make their points quickly and strikingly. This makes them suited to the way that women and minorities have long had to speak. Women are interrupted more than men are in conversation. To be registered, the speech of the marginalised needs to be both brief and thunderous.’ And yet, as Masud asks, ‘If brevity and aphorisms lend themselves to fighting misogyny, why are so few aphorisms attributed to women?’ Perhaps, she answers, ’short texts by women have tended, historically, to be anonymous – absorbed into the wider, less prestigious form of ‘proverb’, and circulated without attribution… The association of the aphoristic and the powerful is so strong that we can simply fail to see aphoristic women and their work. Resistance to being seen, or heard, is a part of how aphorism works.’

In other words, anonymity ‘allows its speakers to use it as the site of an open secret.’ Opening a lengthy dialogue may be dangerous if the message proffered is from a minority, or an unpopular group; it may be dismissed or ignored if it is heard as a woman’s voice in many societies. ‘The polished boundaries of aphorism signal that dialogue is unwelcome; no reply is necessary. The brevity of aphorisms, then – refusing both explanation and dialogue – can either be a power move or in fact a lack-of-power move: a way of expressing oneself safely by remaining unheard.’ But, ‘Aphorism makes explicit an urgent contemporary problem: that we live within political and plutocratic structures that are unthreatened even by the revelation of new information or insights.’

I have to say I had never thought of aphorisms in that light. But I think my daughter did.

I have a lot of memories of her early years in school -perhaps because of the projects she brought home to show me, or the new ideas that excited her. Occasionally, however, she obviously didn’t understand and asked me to explain. One day she looked more than simply confused, though -more like, well, hurt. Angry, even. I think there had been some staff shortages at her school that week, so the teachers as well as their classes had been blended to cover for the shortage.

In fact, on one of those days she walked straight past me when she got home and headed up to her room. Normally she’d stop, hug me, and if her mother wasn’t around, ask if she could have some cookies. I decided to put a few of her favourites on a plate and take them up to her.

She usually leaves her door wide open -she was a very sociable child and welcomed visitors, especially bearing gifts- but I found her door tightly closed that day. When she didn’t answer my knock, I inched it open and saw her lying on her bed reading.

“I thought you might like some of these, sweetheart,” I said, holding out the plate of cookies.

“Just put them on my desk, Daddy,” she answered without looking up.

I sighed loudly. “Don’t I get a hug for bringing them all the way up here…?”

She glanced over her shoulder at me, and after shrugging theatrically, got off the bed and walked over to hug me almost reluctantly.

Then she reached for a cookie, but before she put it in her mouth, she studied my face for a moment. “Daddy, do you remember that thing that you told me Grampa used to say to you all the time when you got beaten up…?”

I think I blushed because I remember trying to clarify the circumstances for her. “Uhmm, I wasn’t really ever beaten up, Cath. I used to run away from the big kids on the playground after calling them names; they never actually caught me…”

She had a habit of rolling her eyes at things. “Daddy,” she said with her classic arms-folded-over-chest pose, “You know what I mean!”

“I suppose you’re referring to his favourite aphorism -the one about ‘It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, just the size of the fight in the dog!”

She nodded. “That’s the one, but I couldn’t remember the ‘Aff’ word for Miss Thompson.”

“Why did you need to quote the aphorism to her?” I said the word slowly so she could pronounce it to herself.

“ ’Cause she caught me fighting with one of the big boys in the class.”

That took me by surprise -Catherine is one of the friendliest kids I know- and I think I wrinkled my brow at her.

“He stole my eraser, Daddy!” she quickly explained. “And then he even broke one of my pencils, so I had to show him I couldn’t be pushed around.”

The attraction of the sexes was starting much earlier than in my day, I thought, but I let her finish.

“Then Miss Thompson told me to apologize, to him…”

“And…?”

“And I wouldn’t, of course.” Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “Then she told me that little girls shouldn’t fight. She said it wasn’t feminine, or something… And besides, I could get hurt…”

“So… What did you…?”

“So that’s when I quoted the A-thing at her.”

“Did she get mad at you?”

“No…” Catherine paused for a moment, then with a wry smile I’d never seen on her before, she explained. “Jimmy apologized to me before Miss Thompson could think of anything more to say.”

She finally put the cookie in her mouth and munched on it contentedly. “You know,” she continued between bites, “I think Miss Thompson liked the Aff…” -she shook her head in mild frustration again at the word- “well, liked the expression, anyway, because I heard her quoting it to one of the other teachers in the hall after the class. I think maybe I taught her something…”

Yes Catherine, I thought as I walked back down the stairs to the kitchen, I think you just might have…

, , , ,

gozzter

, , , ,

Leave a comment