About a week ago a piece was written for the Washington Post that I found to be out of place in the Opinions section. I hesitate to provide the title of it, as it might automatically turn readers against me, for not viewing it with the sensitivity it requires, at least on one level. But here it is - the title 'My wife died just after Election Day. I'm attending the Women's March for her'.
Death so often does necessitate the offering of condolences,
ignoring errors in judgement or in practice, and just generally thinking of uplifting
things to say. But then why would anyone choose to publish an obituary in the
Opinions section of a newspaper? Perhaps
the reason was that it wasn’t an obituary in the usual sense. It was as much
about the husband of the person who had died as about the deceased. And yet,
scores of comments in the Comments section following the article were written
in a manner that resembled condolences more than comments.
One might ask, was the article telling us the
opinion of the writer on some social or political - or economic - issue? Not exactly, no, the writer appeared
to be questioning his own sense of masculinity, in preparing to march in place
of his deceased wife in the Saturday’s Women’s March, held in Washington and in
places around the world, on Jan 21, 2017. Those who marched did so for a
variety of reasons, many of the marchers no doubt being personally motivated,
others marching for the rights of women who are marginalized in society, some
having specific interests, such as abortion rights for women, violence against
women, etc.
Mr Ikins’s wife suffered a tragic death, a fall
down stairs, a coma, and finally, release through death. I can relate to that experience
of having a fall. A year ago today I suffered a slip and fall, through which I
broke my femur. Luckily - I think – I
survived, not having severed an artery and having a fast-acting, thoughtful
neighbour, paramedics ready to do their bit, and an expert surgeon to care for
my injury. Since then I have had to walk using a walker, but in a few days I
will have the nails removed from the knee – nails that held the rod in place
while the leg healed. So I am hoping for the best outcome. But by chance, my
equilibrium – my sense of balance, experienced as a kind of giddiness, has
affected my ability to walk normally too. Mr Ikins says that Nov 8 was the worst
day of his life. It was not a great day
for me, either.
On November 8, 2016, I attended an appointment with
an ENT (ear, nose and throat) specialist, to tell him about the symptoms I had
been having, but found my concerns being dismissed by a specialist who was
overbooked, overworked that day, no doubt, and who was not expecting this new
set of symptoms. For some reason, he was also defensive, and spent far too much
time explaining to me why he sent the last report to my old family doctor, the
one I had laid a complaint against with the CPSO, and filed an application
against with the Human Rights Tribunal.
I had realized the report went to that doctor, despite my requesting
from his appointment taker/secretary that it not be, but it was anyway, in
order to abide by the regulations.
On my way in, I had asked the girl at his clinic front
desk if the report could be sent to a different doctor this time, and she said
she thought so, but to ask the doctor when I saw him, which I did. All this
took precious time away from my concerns – of the balance issue –
disequilibrium. Finally, he offered me a
partial VNG test (look it up). I agreed, and later, at home, looked up the test
on google. I saw that I had been offered only a piece of the set of 4 tests,
and so decided to try to get the tests I needed. To skip to the end of this
story, the appointment-taker/secretary and the staff at the ENT clinic lied
about me, and the ENT specialist cancelled the appointment I had with him. I am
now left with no suitable options for a proper diagnosis nor for treatment
options, nor to repair the damage to my reputation. The only possible option I have, which won’t
help my vestibular/vertigo problems, is to lay a complaint against this doctor
too.
Returning to the article written by Charles Ikins, I
have to say I question whether Charles Ikins’s perception of the reasons for
the march were rather limited. He saw it as being for women who experience
indignities of the kind Trump had presumably committed, the very reason his
wife was protesting. And he decided that
it would not be unmasculine for him to march in place of his wife, to honour
her beliefs and commitment.
For the most part, I believe the women’s march was
about fighting for the rights of women, and especially marginalized women,
women who do not get the same kinds of opportunities and treatment that other
women do – some of them single women, poor women, women without husbands, black
women, old women, and so on. The maintaining of rights of women – abortion,
sexual rights, and so on, were also reasons women marched.
I thought that the Washington Post had used a grieving
husband’s thoughts and piece honouring his wife as a political manoeuvering – publishing
it on Trump’s Inauguration Day, the day before the women’s march. Taken on its
own, as a piece intended for friends and family, the article could be seen as
having merit. But published in the Washington Post, for the public to read, it
came across as something very different.
Part way through the article, Mr Ikins mentions the
admonition for participants to “check your privilege.” He says he thinks he
knows the meaning of the phrase, and yet the article itself is an example of
what the privileged should try not to do. Instead of seeing things through their
own eyes only, and taking for granted the things they have, the material advantages
in life, and seeing their own cause as the one most worthy, they might try to
see what others experience in life.
It is part of the human condition for tragedy to
strike families – all of us - tragedies that are not anyone's fault. That's not going to help the writer of the article talked about here, but it needs to be said. Furthermore,
some people in life – women among them – struggle in ways the privileged might
not even be able to imagine – and it is not always men who are responsible for
the injustices. Finally, I have
reservations about the value of a Women’s March if President Trump is chosen to
be the most recent scapegoat for feminists seeking to unite women over a cause -
any cause – to enhance interest in the feminist movement.
By Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post - Opinions
Jan 12, 2017
By Charles Ikins
Washington Post – Opinions
Jan 20, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/my-wife-died-on-election-day-im-attending-the-womens-march-for-her/2017/01/20/e83c8092-df2d-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html?utm_term=.52db5f512fff&wpisrc=nl_opinionsA&wpmm
