Alexandra Olin
COM 160
001
“No
longer will man be born from dust or rib, but force and violence.” This line
from Amy Arellano’s writing: Word
Wielding Womb: Using the Body to Fight the War on Women, is so vital to
understand not only because it addresses the world’s current war-ravaged climate
but because it can be related to numerous amounts of issues being faced by
women today. Her writing is also vital in our studies due to the relativeness
to the information on tolerance and advocacy we address and focus on in class. Without
the knowledge of proper advocacy, how can we as students properly understand
the world of communication around us? Arellano’s writing plays a major
contribution not only to future advice but to the current issues being
addressed today.
In today’s world,
war ravages countries, and the effects can be seen on all fronts of social
media. Children and babies being pulled from rubble and debris that are half
starved and screaming accurately represents Arellano’s sentence. These children
are born not from peace and prosperity as we can derive from Arellano’s comparison
of ‘dust or rib’, but from force and violence. The violence that has ravaged so
many countries and left not only children but their mothers war-torn and
desperate for peace. Arellano’s writing speaks so profoundly to this issue of
babies and children engulfed in the fights of others who have no one to speak
for them or represent their well-being. Her line: ‘no longer will man be born
from dust or rib,’ relates directly to the book of Genesis where God takes a
rib from Adam and puts it in Eve and creates both man and women from the dust
of the earth. This symbolizes peaceful creation wherein our basic needs as
humans are represented and cared for by either our families or those
surrounding us. But in today’s violent and forceful word, children are born
into war, violence and dangerous situations wherein they fend for themselves.
Moreover, Arellano’s
sentence pulled from her brilliant poetry addressing the current political and
social issues facing women today not only shows the need to change certain
aspects of society we still cling to but urges others to change their way of operating
only for selfish gain and to focus on the needs of those without a voice. A
perfect example in social media to represent Arellano’s writing where women and
children have no voice and are born into violence and forceful behavior is the
new hit show The Handmaiden’s Tale. This
show depicts a young woman in a futuristic yet conservative way of life wherein
the women in the world’s population can no longer bare children. Therefore, in
certain parts of the country where the military controls these women, the
government forces the women who can still have children to have ritualized,
forced sex with government officials whose wives cannot have children. After
the handmaiden gives birth, the child goes to the official’s wife who raises
the child as their own only to have the handmaiden sent back to the prison-like
circumstances to be bred again. This violent government controlled way of
producing children accurately represents Arellano’s words addressing children
being born into violence and forceful behavior. And while this future may not
exist yet, Arellano’s words of warning may yet be remembered if the actions of
the world do not give voice to women and the children they bare.
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