BIG MAN: A Wake-Up Call for Women

Chapter 3 - Deprivation of Liberty

Liberty: the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's behaviour (or political views). It starts with an innocent-enough 'Are you sure you want to wear that?' and ends with 'Dress how I tell you. You just want attention from other men' and somewhere in between he manages to convince you that your personal appearance is better expressed as conservatively as possible. Failing to do so means you lack class and grace. To be a woman of maturity you must not only dress in the least expressive way possible but it cannot be your own decision to do so, it must be at his suggestion. Any mature woman reading this has already seen straight through this little ploy for exactly what it is. And yes we are well aware of the broader meaning of liberty in global politics, but the point of this chapter is to show you that liberty is first and foremost a basic human right in the home.

In any instance where your abuser, controller, sociopathic counter-part assigned to you by some bizarre twist of fate to teach you to be wiser before choosing a partner, attempts to exercise control over your basic freedom of expression, it is a human rights violation. Do not dress like that, do not talk like that, do not talk to that person, do not be larger than life, do not have a career or honour your dreams, do not do anything that might make him feel you are an independent individual with rights of your own. You are his possession and you must adhere to his wishes or pay for defying him. He will subject you to a barrage of verbal abuse, false accusations, paranoid claims, demean your character as a woman, strip away your self-esteem and completely subjugate you to his deluded belief that he and he alone is the only person in the room with a correct opinion, and he will do this slowly at first, it will come across to you as him being protective of your person because he 'loves you so much', so you forgive the first few instances of his lunacy probably because you can relate to being slightly jealous and wanting to have someone all to your self. You will not notice that you have never told him what to wear or to whom he can and cannot speak , you have never mentioned anything about whose attention he might want because the thought has not entered your perfectly sane mind, but that will not matter because you will excuse his insecurities as a sort of twisted affection shown for you in his own unique way. 'That's just him' you will say, and you will say this having absolutely no idea that much more insidious plot in under way to eventually deprive you fully of any freedom whatsoever, and when it comes, you will call it partnership, co-operation, and love. His illness will become your illness. He will have convinced you that it is perfectly normal and all couples are like this. If they are not, they should be, because he would know, and you, clearly have something to learn. 

If you are not enraged reading this it might be the case that you are yet to make the connection between what can often be perceived as normal every day life for millions of women, and a blatant human rights violation. Once you make that connection and understand its severity, the harmful effects on your psyche, self-esteem, individuality, work, social life, and even your role as a parent, you might opt to have potential male partners screened for mental illness before falling for anyone clever enough to con you into believing they are smart, sensitive and kind. The insecure egomaniac manual is unfortunately not handed down to you from on high when you meet him for the first time. The selfish bastard brochure is not slipped to you in between bills in the mail. How could you know that all his whining, complaining, constant negativity, criticisms, abuse and authoritarian approach to every aspect of your life including what music you should and should not listen to, will become part of your every day life and completely drain you of the will to even live? All those sunny days of fun you have in mind? Think again. They will be sabotaged. Those lovely dinners with your friends? He does not like those friends and your dinner will be ruined by a fight afterwards about his opinions of your friends, whom also happen to be doing much better at life than him. That CD you want to listen to in the car because you have not heard it for so long? No you cannot listen to that because he has something better in mind and not only that, your choice in music sucks, apparently. That work associate you speak to for five minutes? No you cannot do that either. He wants your sex and it is your fault. Those happy days of independence and final freedom long after you have left him? You can almost have that, but not before he has tried everything to prevent you from ever having it. Your naivety will be your weakness, your compassion, forgiveness and patience used against you. There is nothing more he will want from you except your complete obedience. If you come even close to exposing him, he will threaten to have you put away.

We don't need to address the multitude of deprivations of liberties experienced by women all over the world in situations ranging from severe to mild but herein lies an interesting question: what is severe, and what is mild? You may not get locked in a dungeon without food or water for three days, you may not be splashed with acid or stoned for disobeying your husband, but what of your internal stoning? What of the acid in his words every time they scorch your silly soul? What about the prison of fear that surrounds you, like an animal in a cage that your mind has come to accept as normal, a mental prison you are not quite sure that you can leave safely because of all the other things, those unmentionable things, that stirring nausea you experience walking around your own town without a friend in the world because quite frankly, they do not give a rats arse. You are on your own and the severity of what has happened to you cannot be seen on the outside, but you live with it and it shapes your reality, it affects the way you relate to other men, it prevents you from attracting a good, real man, it makes you unnecessarily guarded, a cold bitch, because you simply do not have the energy to entertain any more childish nonsense from any man in the whole universe ever, so the right man with minor excusable flaws passes you by, and your abuser has won. We don't think of mental and emotional abuse, these deprivations of liberty either, as being anywhere near as severe as the experiences of women in the Middle East, or Africa, and yet they have just as much potential to completely destroy your life, turn you into the activist you never wanted to become, and resign you to the fact that if a man cannot fuck it, dominate it, breed with it, own it, employ it or subjugate it, he probably won't want it, and you will not feel at all bad feeling this way, because every single man you meet from that day forward will prove it to you. Your abuser has successfully rewritten the code in your love-matrix that once read: "Live the Life of Your Dreams."

You will not believe in fairy tales any more. You will not enjoy the way the next man places his hand in the small of your back. You will not have the slightest inclination to indulge the sick-minded drivel that so many males seem proud to offer, because you will have finally realised how deeply damaging your abuser's actions really were and you will see them magnified in every man you meet, like huge red neon danger signs. It will hit you with such amazing clarity, you will not know whether to vomit, cry, or sell everything and move to the Bahamas. Your wounds will stay with you until they are healed. So I do not really have the time or the intention to therapise you into understanding what it is that makes men behave this way because none of it deserves an explanation. They know it to be wrong, but they do it anyway; deprive you of liberty, choice, freedom, individuality, love.. wrapped up in "Trust me. It's the best thing for you." and because you love him (why?) you will go right along with all of it. I do not feel any pressing need to wake these half-men up from their deluded state but I do feel very strongly about waking you up.