Women Talking

 

The weight of this book is instant. What it means is a slow burn. I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and can't get it out of my mind. The plight of these women and they way in which they reacted to it reflect society's views on abuse and gender so deeply, its message is now imprinted in my heart.

The premise of Women Talking is horrific. Women of a Mennonite colony in Bolivia were repeatedly attacked and sexually assaulted in their sleep. The men of their colony knocked them out with a cow anesthestic, assaulted them, then made them believe it was demons coming to them in their sleep. 

This story takes up what might have happened next. It's set up as a man who once left the colony and returned is taking notes on meetings the women were having about what to do next. The men who inflicted this pain on them have been arrested (though, it's explained, it was for their protection, not the women's). The women have a small window on their own to decide what to do next. Do the run away and leave the only home they've ever known? These women don't speak a language spoken by anyone else outside of their religion. They have no money, no map, no idea about the outside world. Do they stay and risk further attack? If they do leave, what about the men and boys they leave behind?

That last question is the moral dilemma faced by so many women who are abused. No one is denying these women are victims. So, why should they struggle with the guilt of what happens to everyone else? Why is the burden theirs to carry?

The book describes life in a colony like this, of course, but it's such a lesson about our world as well. The more removed I am, the more I think of that weight and the centuries that got us to this place.

This book is a hard read. Not because of the prose, but because of the message. But, it's equal parts beautifully done and important.