Bird In Cage
This was a social experiment performed by me to understand both literally and metaphorically what it feels like to be 'caged' being a woman.
Write up post-performance:
19th October 2012,
My experience with the 'Bird in Cage' performance:
Personally as a performer, after I performed yesterday and today, I observed a couple of things.
Firstly I realized that when I was in a position of helplessness, it becomes a comfort zone. I got a lot more attention, and hence it could be a probability that out of this craving for support and care we could probably fake certain emotions of despair onto ourselves just because we are lazy to "fly" or consider ourselves incapable of being independent.
Secondly, I also felt a sense of security inside the cage, even if people attempted to put their hands into the cage I was confident that nothing was going to harm me. Probably we like to be "protected" and at the same time complain about being "overprotected" because we are afraid of the risks and challenges we would have to deal with otherwise. And so, we prefer a shoulder to lean on which will handle everything for us?
Thirdly I felt happy. I was a very much happy bird inside the cage. I could see that I made so many people smile. And in return, I earned an immeasurable sense of joy. So, probably a mother who has given up all personal desires to be with the family is indeed very much happy to be "caged" by choice as she is earning "happiness". Where as a woman who wants to prioritize her career and has been forced to handle a family may not feel the same. Again, both are right in their own places. But if I, as a woman allow myself to be "forced" into giving up my career, I need to realize that I have allowed myself to be caged. I need to realize that I have wings to fly if I want to and if I an am not, then maybe its because it is 'me' who believes I'm not ready to fly and confront my inherent capabilities.
Lastly, I was the one who built my own cage and put it up and went and sat inside it. That itself shows that most of us(women) do not realize that we are the ones who allow restrictions to be put onto ourselves. We cage ourselves and doubt our own strength and simply complain about being weak and oppressed. It is not the men who put a cage to us but we who allow them to maybe by a choice that we aren't conscious of making...
Why don't we use our strength? Why can't we make our own choices? Is it because we consider ourselves less capable as we keep confirming what has been told to us about our capabilities? Or do we just live with the expectations of being helped, for being a member of the assumed 'weaker sex' and then complain about being "helpless" when that help stops coming to us? It all depends on the point of view, and you can come up with an endless number of opinions about it!
Why don't we use our strength? Why can't we make our own choices? Is it because we consider ourselves less capable as we keep confirming what has been told to us about our capabilities? Or do we just live with the expectations of being helped, for being a member of the assumed 'weaker sex' and then complain about being "helpless" when that help stops coming to us? It all depends on the point of view, and you can come up with an endless number of opinions about it!