In many progressive organisations and movements across the world, it has been an acceptable norm to categorise women revolutionaries as “flowers/roses of the revolution.” In various platforms, I have openly and outrightly protested against this depiction and called for change; that, as comrades, we need to refer to female comrades as “comrades” or “revolutionaries” and desist from giving them the “flowers/roses” title. The same applies to, as we have seen in many obituaries, the contribution of women revolutionaries to the revolution as “revolutionary in her own right” instead of simply referring to them as “revolutionaries.”
The “flowers” symbolism in society has, in most instances, meant to depict women as merely passive beings who just wait to be “picked up”, and thus the “picker” doing whatever they want with the “flower.” The flower, as a symbol, tends to present women as nothing but entities to be used in whatever way that anyone wishes to use them. For instance, the florist uses flowers to beautify whatever place they want to beautify; weddings, parties, homes, funerals, etc. On the other hand, the bees simply have to invite themselves into the “innocent” flower, violate it and do with it whatever is in its wishes.
That was, and remains, the general understanding of the woman when she is depicted as a rose or a flower. For the rest of this article, I will use the term “flower” as it also covers “rose.” For purposes of this article and easier examples, I only focus on heterosexual relations.
While my criticism on depictions of women comrades as “flowers/roses” remains valid, during the Communist Party of Swaziland’s Summer School in December 2022, I took some time to re-evaluate the “flowers” characterisation. I began to think what if, for argument's sake, women, in fact, were flowers? Yes, let us look at women as flowers!
This curiosity in my mind was not just about women revolutionaries. It was about women, as a whole, and not just the limited category of “women revolutionaries” being flowers. In other words, for the purposes of this article, let us look at women as nothing but flowers, and see what we come out with. When our brainstorming is done, would we see women as merely passive beings, that is if we envision them as nothing but flowers? Let us interrogate the matter closely.
As we take a few steps into the matter under discussion, I am reminded of a story I saw on social media recently. This lady put out a huge claim that when they, as women, wear whatever they wear, particularly mini-skirts and other revealing clothes, they do so not for men but just to feel good about themselves. Silently, I outrightly dismissed such assertion. I have seen many such assertions, in various forms, from different women, and each time I saw them I did not agree with them, though I did not express myself openly.
My mind often said “Just doing it for yourself? Get out 'a here!”
Obviously, the patriarchal side of the discussion presents women as nothing but passive beings waiting to be directed on how to think and where to go. On their own, so goes the patriarchal stipulation, women are just a disaster and simply cannot lead. The solution? Introduce a man to show them the way. The example? The example that often gets flown around is that even women organisations do not function very well without a man being involved while, on the other hand, male-dominated organisations function pretty well without women’s involvement. This very patriarchal notion thus presents women as nothing but flowers, that is, passive flowers, if you may.
But then there is the problem that sometimes gets thrown into the pan by the liberatory side of the coin. While the liberatory movement may be well-meaning in their campaign(s) for women’s rights, sometimes they fall into the pit of presenting women as nothing but passive beings. Sometimes the notion being thrown around is that women are pure beings, carrying no negative characteristics and, thus, must be supported on anything they wish for. This notion often posits that, whatever the case, women must be supported to the hilt notwithstanding whatever their actions. Again, while this movement may intend to do away with the “flower” depiction of the woman, they bring the woman back into that very category they detest, and the woman is, once again, rendered as a human being without a brain and thus without any positive intention on how they live their lives.
By now, some “I believe her” proponents are probably fuming at this analysis. Please, dear activists, we are not on that issue, for now. We will come to it in the future.
But what if we allowed ourselves to think of women as flowers? What might we discover? Would we discover women as passive or active beings? This is an interesting journey from which I wish not to depart.
In this analysis, I beseech the reader to take some time and comprehend the woman as nothing else but a flower, that is if we are to do any justice to the interrogation. Register this within yourself: Every woman is a flower. In this instance, we must also introduce the bee which searches for the flower, settles on it, and thereby gets nectar to create its honey.
What conclusions come into your mind? Let us talk about them.
The main problem with the flower story is that it is often told from the bee’s and flower-lover's angles. But we need to tell the flower’s story directly from its own side, no longer from secondary sources.
See, the process of pollination is a story of the flower and the bee. In this instance, let us ignore other types of pollination and stick to the pollen (flower) and the bee.
From a scientific analysis of the pollination process, we discover that the bee can never ever find the flower without the positive action of the flower. In other words, the flower necessarily needs to be active if it is to bring the bee to itself. The flower, therefore, actively sends out some specific elements to the air in order to draw the bee to itself. These elements we refer to them as “pollen.” Once it has located a bee, any bee, it is able to draw it to itself to carry out whatever the flower wishes the bee to do. The flower, therefore, pulls the bee to itself.
In common parlance, the independent observer may assume that the bee flies to the flower because it has “discovered” it, as the flower waited to be so discovered. As we thoroughly scrutinise the scientific process, however, we discover that indeed the bee was in search of a flower, but it was able to locate this specific flower because the flower sent out its scent in order to draw to itself whatever bee was available out there. In this instance, the flower is not a passive participant in the pollination process. It is active from the time it becomes a flower. In this sense, the flower is an active element in the fertilisation process.
Observing the above reality, we discover, therefore, that the presentation of women as passive beings is a huge mistake. Nay more, the presentation of women as mere beautiful flowers without any active elements within themselves is a gross misrepresentation of women.
On this score, we have seen in the “normal” world how women have been depicted as nothing but the garden upon which the seed is planted, the “garden,” as woman, being a passive agent. On this score, the female reproductive process is seen as inactive, passive, and nothing but a receptor. Again, science has proved wrong all such assertions – and, one must say, thanks to all the hated “feminist” scientists that these, and other similar discoveries, have been made.
The presumption that it is the sperm which swims the fastest that makes the baby has been proved as a fallacy. Recent studies have shown that the female’s reproductive process also helps to push up the sperm to reach the egg. The reproductive tract also influences the sperms’ behaviour. The zona pellucida also plays an active role to ensure that no more than one sperm enters the egg and that, after one has entered, other sperms are repelled from entering the egg, making it impenetrable.
It has been shown that the movement of sperm is enhanced by muscle contractions in the uterus (into the fallopian tubes) and oviducts and by the beating of ciliated epithelium which lines the uterus. Before that, the cervical mucus prepares a friendly environment for the sperm to pass through.
The egg itself is not a passive participant just waiting to be fertilised. Its release marks a positive activity on the part of the woman to “search” for the “most perfect” sperm. In other words, it is not just the sperms’ swimming capabilities that decides on the egg’s fertilisation. The surrounding cells of the egg, just like the pollen in the flower draws-in the “confused” bee, actively attract the sperm to the egg.
Additionally, some studies have shown that the egg does not always agree with the woman’s choice of partner and that the female egg actually chooses the sperm. The chosen sperm may be that of another man and not her partner's sperm. This should tell us that even within the woman’s body, the woman’s reproductive system does not remain passive, a receptor of whatever the male has “deposited.” She remains active even when she is not conscious of the fact.
From the above, it is clear that the female reproductive system also actively contributes to the complete process of fertilisation and conception. That way, there is no such thing as “fertilisation of the egg,” in truth. Probably, we should just speak of the creation of the human being and not merely “fertilisation” of anything. A story for another day!
Firstly, we have seen, above, that, in both the flower-bee relationship and the sperm-egg relationship, there is a dialectical or contemporaneous relationship between the two. For pollination to take place, the prime decision is not just the act of the bee that fertilises the flower, but also the act, which may be the most decisive, of the flower which pulls the bee from a long distance to itself. Likewise, for a baby to be conceived, it is not merely the act of the male element (sperm) which swims to a waiting, helpless female egg. Rather, both the female and male reproductive systems are actively involved in ensuring conception.
As such, from the above, we may thus deduce that even when it comes to the conception and conclusion of consensual relations, of whatever kind between males and females, both are always involved. None between the two is ever taken by surprise when such relations are concluded. Yes, the socialisation process, in line with whatever stage of development of production relations, may present females as non-thinking and empty-headed participants. Science proves, however, that women are very much active participants in every step. Seen in this regard, it becomes clear, therefore, that they are never taken advantage of in such cases. They are active participants of these relations.
Earlier, I made the bold assertion that those women who posit that they wear in this or that fashion not for men but for themselves as nothing but liars. I must account for this.
Women who make such assertions are, often, still imprisoned by the dominant European-Christian standards of morality. They have submitted themselves to the belief that women are presumed [sexually] evil, unless the contrary is proved, by virtue of being women.
Let us be fair: men, generally, view women as beautiful beings before any other element comes into the picture, and there is nothing inherently evil or immoral about that. Of course, the fundamentalist Christian may view this differently, but let us abandon them, for now, and stick to science. The presumption that females, by virtue of being a natural attraction to males, are evil is an oppressive belief in human society. Sadly, some progressive women have adapted themselves to such nonsensical belief and, when they depict women in their “emancipatory” education, they depict women as “pure” beings, incapable of wrong, thus falling into the patriarchal trap, its oppositive in this instance, that women are nothing but inactive beings who just get violated willy-nilly and cannot do anything about it.
“What a man can do, a woman can do better” are some of the terrible examples coming from the emancipatory community.
Secondly, there is nothing evil or wrong about a woman dressing up with the full intention of attracting, sexually or otherwise, any member of the opposite sex. It does not matter if the woman wants to create a relationship or simply wants to attract the man/men and leave it there. In other words, there is totally nothing wrong with the “flower” drawing-in the “bee” to itself for whatever reason. There is also absolutely nothing wrong with a woman harbouring thoughts of having sexual relations with any member of society. Any proscription of such freedom constitutes the flagrant violation of women’s rights. Oh, I must request security in this regard, for the religious fundamentalists will surely hunt me down on this point.
From the examples of the flower-bee and sperm-egg relations, we thus discover that women are not passive beings at all. Women are very much capable of building a just world as must as they can build an unjust one. They are active beings. This includes the decision to have sexual relations with this or that partner. They make positive decisions in this regard and have sexual relations with people they wish to have same with, notwithstanding the fact that men may believe that they “conquered” the woman, and the woman also giving that impression.
Alright, I am cutting this here. Till then.
