Homecoming.

I'm perpetually caught in a reverie where I find myself intrigued by bygone eras to the point I swathe myself in outfits to look as though I'm from a certain time or place. I also tend to read books, both fiction and non fiction, normally based during a period of time I never experienced, as well as searching the internet for candid achromatic photographs to admire of Hollywood movie stars or snapshots of a past culture (most typically 20th century American teens for me) via Life or somewhere similar. I can't honestly say why I feel so entertained by history to the point I want to live and breathe it, feed my mind with knowledge of it and encapsulate it within my wardrobe but I do. Perhaps the fluffy almost exaggerated ideological interpretation of it, far from the negative issues of yesteryear, appear to us all as a simpler time.

I believed this right up until just a few days ago when I read an interview via Interview magazine's website. The singular female (who also happened to be the interviewer) on the topic of living in another time, quite decidedly without hesitation, informed the three men that she wouldn't. I was quite frankly shocked. I spend my days aimlessly and hopelessly looking to fill the gap disappointment has created from not being able to time travel and yet here was a woman who assertively and openly proclaimed she wouldn't want to be in another time. Was she delusional? We live in an age where vintage and retro (University brainwashed me into acknowledging these are two completely different things) products are a booming (both authentic or replicated copies) and she says no? But why I asked in a bewildered frenzy, and lo and behold her answer was the simplest of answers, much more simple than I believe the past to be. '...because I am a woman', she had stated and if there's something I want more than to live in a fluffy bygone era (with Fifties sundaes at the local ice cream parlour or Gatsby-esque Jazz age parties) it is to be a woman with equal rights. Feminist is too much of a debated word for me and unlike some, I don't believe we could survive without men and/or are superior to them but more so, do I believe in equality. (In that case, I shall call myself an egalitarian). She was right, by goodness me she was right. In all of history, I wouldn't be treated better than I do now, (that isn't to say I think equality is where it should be yet) so why would I wish to go backwards? I'll admit, that hasn't dissolved my desire completely but it has given me a fresh outlook and left me battling for a few days on whether she is right or wrong.

Today, I was hit with a classic lightbulb moment wherein I realised, there are women throughout history who are extremely admirable for being strong and independent. Society always has it's restrictions and that's something that is never going to change but to say no to living in a previous time because she was a woman? What about Amelia Earhart or Rosa Parks who pushed at those boundaries. They are the women that are still remembered today are they not? Role models for young girls of their time and ever since, showing them that they can believe in and desire much bigger dreams outside of the box society has created. Without pushing those boundaries, we wouldn't evolve. Without the fight of the suffragettes would we still live in a place where women aren't granted the freedom to vote? Would we have female MPs?

What I am trying to say is, why would you say no to living in the past because of the way women were treated. Why not instead say yes, to be a woman that changes the face of history. A woman that pushes the boundaries and proves society wrong? Or why not just push the boundaries of society today whilst we quietly wait for Marty and Doc to show up on our doorsteps?