Battleship Reason

Imagine Venice – the city of lovers, of culture, of beauty and of mystery. You sip champagne in your gondola while an ever charming Italian gondolier sings a pleasant little tune as you move slowly down the Grand Canal, which is almost empty. He deposits you at your chic little boutique hotel that is still fashionably dilapidated to give it a sense of time. You offer to pay him, but he refuses and smiles, making sheeps’ eyes at you and saying in badly accented English: “No no signore! You lady and you, this my gift to you!”

And now surface to reality. Venice is beautiful, for about ten seconds. If you do not get a concussion from all the tourist swinging their brand new DSLR’s with 2 meter lenses around, then you are likely to die of starvation because of the incredibly inflated prices at Piazza San Marco. There is probably no point in getting off your boat really – sooner or later you will be ankle-deep in water. Oh, and yes, seeing how Venice lacks what we would traditionally call a sewage system, you will probably be skipping through the water trying to avoid all the squishy land mines. Oh, and that gondolier? Yes, imagine how romantic it is to be shifted through tiny little (albeit pretty) channels with dozens of gondolas in front of you and to the back. Dozens, if not hundreds, of like-minded couples and families trying to gain some semblance of romanticism, while your gondoliers shout to each other about Maria and how good she was last night. Oh, and the singing? No, best to leave La Donna E Mobile to the professionals. The final bill for a half an hour gondola ride will probably account for about thirty percent of your entire trip’s budget. Yay for Venice!

That having been said, the city does have its charms. One of them, at least for me, a man, has just taken form of Venice’s first female gondolier. This breaks over nine centuries of male dominance in this particular profession. The test for a license itself is apparently purposefully gruelling in order to discourage women from applying for positions – yet twenty three year old Giorgia Boscolo has managed to do just that. She is apparently much more at ease handling long poles than shopping and latest gossip. Favourite activity? Rowing, not spas. You have to admire a woman like that. Set aside the whole male-female divide for a second, and imagine the situation.

Gondoliers are one of Venice’s best known features. Venice without gondoliers is like New York without its yellow taxis. Now imagine how much courage it takes for a woman to challenge an institution that is not only known worldwide for its male-dominated approach, but also has that same approach rooted in over nine hundred years of practice and history. I myself find it difficult to imagine the sheer willpower necessary to tackle such a challenge, much less have the stamina to see it all the way through to the end. While I find larger than life politicians and popular figures some form of inspiration, the act of this one single woman speak volumes and volumes of the unbelievable need and desire for the human spirit to evolve and to challenge the perceived notions of this world.

Oh, and of course – again – Id much rather look at a pretty face as I glide through Venice than a gruff looking annoyed man with a tendency to curse at his fellows.

Read the full (albeit short) story here.