Sermon
Queen Vashti: A Model of Dissent
We need to agree
that the human history is a history of the males where male is portrayed as
courageous, powerful and ruler on one hand, and on the other, it has depicted
women to be vulnerable, feeble and meant to be ruled by the male. The
narratives in the scripture portray women in varied perspectives. It discloses
women as passive and submissive and also projects them as subversive and
progressive. Amidst the narratives which suppress the freedom and dignity of women,
emerge few narratives, which reveal the intervention of God and God’s
Liberative history that proclaims women as Liberative partners with God in the
process of liberation history. The narrative of Queen Vashti is one such, which
fuels the women and vulnerable communities to empower themselves to disagree
with the stereotyped norms that project women as objects and subjugated. However, women who disagreed with the male
constituted norms have been victimized in the name of religion and
culture.
The passage which was read gives us an account
of a woman who said ‘no’ to the king himself. This woman is often seen as a
model that women should not follow. The tactic of the patriarchal writing often
reiterates the silencing of women who often challenged the system and resisted
power. Vashti was one such person who fell as prey to such a kind of writing.
And history makes no effort in heaving the essence of her struggle to subdue
patriarchy. Vashti teaches us through her being how to overcome patriarchy even
if it takes to erasing her name from history. Let us reflect on the life of
Vashti, who emerged as the model of dissent amidst a strong patriarchal
society.
Vashti’s Refusal as a model of Resistance
to Objectification of Beauty
In today’s world
people are more evaluative with their external appearance than the internal
values. Fairness is one of the important criterions for a person to look
beautiful. Thus the consumeristic world has come up with innumerable cosmetics
to change the very appearance of a person. The Beauty of an individual,
especially of woman is commodified, objectified and commercialized. In Vashti, if
we read carefully the scripture brings out a subversive nature of beauty.
A woman’s beauty
is always the pride of man in a patriarchal culture. In this case it was Queen
Vashti who was known for her beauty and her beauty was the King’s pride. The
King had the authority to call Vashti anytime, predominantly in a drunken
state, and she would positively respond to the King’s call. This unveils the
brutality of patriarchal structure in which women were considered as male’s sex
toys that was destined to fulfill the sexual urge of man without any respect
for woman’s consent. ‘Women being objectified’ is the greatest discovery of
patriarchy through which women are drawn into an illusionary state of being
glorified and subjugated, and underplayed. Vashti was given the honour of being
the Queen, and the King’s chief Queen among Queens. The trick of the King is to
reward Vashti a higher place in the palace and keep her under illusion of being
high on one hand, and on the other, to display her beauty for the entertainment
of the men. Vashti expresses her dissent against the patriarchal nature that
commodifies women in order to entertain the male dominant society. However, the
King makes a mockery of the Queen’s love and expectation and forces her to be
exposed to the other males. Thus, Vashti dares herself to dismantle the
understanding of beauty which is commodified in order to fulfill the desires of
males, and confronts the -patriarchal understanding and usage of beauty. Vashti
calls us to resist those cultures which objectifies and commodifies the beauty
in order to meet the flesh’s greed, and assert human identity and dignity.
Vashti’s Dissent as a Model of Combat
against the Silencing by the Patriarchal Norms
The epistemology
of patriarchy employed the plans of ‘silencing’ to construct the socially
subjugated image of the women. By imposing shame, fear for life, safety, security
and modesty on the women, patriarchy is in the process of ‘silencing’ and
victimising women. The increasing rate of rapes and sexual abuse is to threaten
the freedom of women and voices of women that calls and claims for empowerment.
Since the empowerment of women involves de-powering of men, men are worried
about their strong dominant structure being dismantled. Thus they engage in
varied forms of violence against women to keep them where they are. Similarly,
when Vashti rejects the wish of the King, the entire male community (Chapter 1
Verse 16) comes together to revolt against Vashti’s dissent. Further, they were
worried that Vashti’s dissent will become a model for other women to fight for
their dignity and feared revolution (re-evolution) of the women community.
Thus, the male dominants conspired to punish Vashti on one hand, and silence
the other women on the other hand (Verse 17) with the use of law. It is
unfortunate that, the Law, be it religious or secular, predominantly is male
centred and is often used to fence women or silence them. The tenth commandment
declares the list of man’s assets and in that list woman and wife are enlisted.
The asset could be used to any extent by the owner. Thus, in the name of law,
especially religious law, men try to silence women’s cry for liberation.
However, Queen Vashti is not threatened by the conspiracy of the male
dominants. She continues to persist in her dissent and breaks the tradition of
silencing women at the cost of her royal status.
During my field
work in Mumbai, I came across many stories of women, who were trafficked into
sex trade and were physically and sexually abused and assaulted. A person by
the name “Lakshmi”[1]
was trafficked and forced into sex work. While she tried to resist she was
brutally beaten, when she lost her struggle against her oppressors, she was
raped many times and again when she resisted, her sex organs (breasts) were
slashed. The recent attacks on women in
Tamil Nadu; where all the six women were killed brutally due to their refusal. This
has been the status of women in our society. Most of the women are not given any rights to say ‘no’ to the
sexual urge of men. They cannot express their dissent, in other words many
women do not have control over their bodies, but rather, it is the male who has
control over the woman’s body. If at all the women try to say ‘no’ they are
physically abused and silenced. Queen Vashti and her nature of battle against
the conspiracy of silencing encourages every woman not to give up hope on her
fight for dignity and subject herself to the perpetrated violence, rather,
continue to fight against every force that is conspiring to silence the women’s
voice for liberation.
Vashti as a Model of God’s Liberative Act
Refusal by
Vashti shows that voicing out should be the crux of every woman’s life in a
society that is filled and drained with male dominant views and morals. She
being a woman voiced out to say ‘No’ and her refusal shows the audacity she had
to say to the king himself, in the Monarchical age the King was considered to
be the representative of God and the order of the King was equivalent to God’s
order, which has to be accepted and performed without any hesitance. The revolting nature of Vashti commemorates God’s
liberating intervention in the human history and reiterates God’s liberative
act. God intervened in the history of Israel ’s slavery and transformed
‘no people’ into ‘people.’ God’s purpose of liberation was to make ‘no people’
into ‘people’. Queen Vashti, though she was a Queen, she was denied her
humanity by the patriarchal structure. She was no human, according to the
patriarchal culture. In dissenting the cruelty of patriarchal culture, Vasthi
commemorates God’s dissent against the imposed slavery in Egypt. She further
echoes God’s purpose i.e. to liberate the enslaved from the colonial clutch,
and plunges into the patriarchal structure to dismantle it.
Many NGO’s are
engaged in commemorating God’s liberative roles. They are involved in reminding
the forsaken and suppressed women about God, who is wandering all over in
resisting the evil forces that are curbing the life and dignity of humankind,
especially women. However, Queen Vashti and her subversiveness emulate every
woman to get involved in their struggle for freedom and commemorate the God of
Freedom. The spark of Vashti’s life is still fresh and it invites us to
realize, ignite within and to give a life filled with equality and dignity.
Conclusion
From time
immemorial the patriarchal culture has evolved various tactics to have its prevalence
anywhere and at any cost. It had made sure to suppress the voices of resistance,
especially the voices of women. If at all there emerges a dissenting voice from
the revolting women, the patriarchal culture infuses the mind of division among
women, and projects women as the enemies of women. This tactic is played in a
very subtle way within the socio-political, religio-cultural, and economic
realms; where women are divided according to their status and appearance. In
doing so, they try to keep them at two different extremes and obstructs their
convergence. In the book of Esther, we could see that there is an attempt to
disqualify the role of Vashti and qualify the role of Esther. It has crafted in
such a way that, even when woman read the book of Esther, they don’t give
prominence to Vashti, as they give to Esther. Further, the patriarchal culture
has forced the woman to internalize values which are endorsed by the women themselves
such as to talk softly, walk decently, laugh mildly, be obedient to men and so
forth. Therefore, in the book of Esther, it is a call for us to challenge the internalized
patriarchal norms and find the intersectional of Vashti and Esther and their
role as Liberative partners in dismantling the patriarchal structures internalized
within and also the evil structure that has robbed the life and dignity of the
vulnerable community, especially the women. May the God of Vashti empower us to
de-power the male dominant world and embark in a journey of liberation with God
as Liberative partners.
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