STAYING STAYING HOME HOME AND AND BEING BEING FREE FREE Words by Habibah Jaghoori
Audre Lorde said, ‘I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of colour remains chained.’ The discourse on freedom has been one to exist since the beginning of civilisation. Humanity has experienced and tried many different ideologies, cultures, economies that have all used ‘freedom’ as their forefront and yet, the world we live in today, has humanity in the greatest captivity to date. Life itself has been commodified. Sentiments such as ‘earning a LIVING’ have been ingrained and normalised. The mere act of being alive comes with a cost and that is a culture that strips people of their humanity. The culture that Capitalism breeds stunts women from attaining their dignity, honour, growth and it prevents them from reaching their independent identity. In an environment free from a profitdriven economy and Western values, women can achieve 46
scholarly, personal and ethical growth. Women can achieve political growth. Women can become pioneers for essential social issues that will no doubt expand humans in their intellectual and spiritual developments, and women can achieve it all without having to change, compromise or neglect their characteristics and needs. But there needs to be a certain notion that has to be left behind in this struggle for liberation. That is, women who stay at home are being left behind. Isolating women from practices such as housekeeping and raising children with the false ideas of freedom and growth is not honouring women. It’s an intentional motive to drive women to the labour markets for the purpose of accumulating profit at their exploitation. Capitalism has bankrupted the values that are supposed to be the sweeter aspects of life for all people.
