Okay, now that I have grabbed your attention, let me state my position; Women are equal to men in many aspects of daily life. Hold on! You ask why ‘many’ and not ‘every aspect of life’? Thought so! Let me present ‘my opinion’ succinctly. Women are equal to men in many aspects (not all) because in some aspects they (women) are better. It is just a question of whether the reader views a glass as ‘half full’ or ‘half empty’.
Phew! Now that I have stated my position, let me forewarn the readers that this article is entirely based on my opinion and I have taken the stand after ruminating about it for a long time. The limitations of this article will be the fact that as a male writer, neither will I be able to empathize with women and nor am I privy to their thought process. However, in my opinion, fatalism is the root cause of many issues that women face in their daily life. To add to that, women themselves have contributed to their sufferings because of their non-confrontational attitude that has allowed issues to ferment over ages. Finally, this non-confrontational attitude is a direct off-shoot of the Stockholm syndrome.
Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response that is oftend discussed in reference to a situation in which an abducted hostage shows signs of loyalty to the hostage-taker, regardless of the virulent reprucussions. The hostage-takers are the men who have in the past and unfortunately still continue to impose themselves and their stand on what is right or wrong on the women (the hostages). Although there has been a veritable rise in the number of hostages that have been freed, women continue to dither in claiming their rights. This segues nicely to my next point.
What stops a woman from claiming their rightful status of equality? It has been a man’s world for ages and it has been a repressive regime as far as the women are concerned. Therefore, if women have wrongly assumed that “The Man’s World” would suddenly become quiescent, they are grossly mistaken. Men will always balk when faced with the prospect of granting equal status to women. But why do women need a man’s imprimatur on the basis for equality of status? It is perhaps that women are still adapting to the new found status of equality. Just like a tigress (chose not to give the example of a bird as I feel that would have enervated a woman’s status) that is raised in captive struggles initially, maybe women are going through a similar phase. Unfortunately, typical to Stockholm syndrome, many women continue to remain loyal to their abuser (the man) even when the world has opened up to them.
In India, no one demeans the status of women than Ms. Ekta Kapoor does. (Purely my opinion) Her serials would depict the paradigmatic image of a woman as a ‘Home Maker’ or a ‘Home Breaker’. While the former augurs well for the image of a woman, the latter suggests that a man hardly ever is a ‘Home Breaker’. There would be more vamps than villains. Then there is the surfeit of advertisements of Fairness creams and the like for women that promulgate all the wrong messages. Swarthy (dark skinned) complexion has been portrayed as a disadvantage for women in their professional and social life. The paradigmatic woman of today is someone who rubs shoulder with the men (also in the sun) professionally, manages all the household chores, and still manages to look pretty (mostly with fair complexion). Surely in a man’s world, it is the man who promulgates all these wrong messages with impunity! Or should women share the blame? I leave the judgment up to the reader as I will not be able to substantiate a stand with facts.
One can quote many examples from daily life about women suffering from Stockholm syndrome. For example, between the husband and wife, it is the wife who is always be expected to compromise her ambitions. I may still find that acceptable as in any society (Indian/Western) the status of the family is more often than not determined by the status of the man. It would be egregious for a man to be in a position where he has to be a ‘Stay at home’ father, even if such a situation was temporary. However, what I find extremely galling is a scenario where women seek comfort in this system and even demean other women who attempt to achieve their professional goals. How dare a woman expect to have the freedom of choice? This is the hostage-taker’s (a man) restriction echoed by the hostage (a woman).
Even today women are bound by the strictest norms of society. A woman must remain within the social boundaries, failing which they must go through an ‘Agni Pariksha’. The term (Agni Pariksha) is associated with Sita, daughter of the Earth and wife of Lord Rama. As is well known, Lord Rama banished his pregnant wife (Sita) to the forests on the banks of the Ganga, based on the suspicions of his subjects about Sita’s purity. (This is after she was rescued from Ravana who had kidnapped her) The most refreshingly modern aspect of the Hindu Mythology is that in a situation where she was to finally re-unite with her husband (Lord Rama), she chose rather to return to her mother (the Earth) than go back to her husband. Unfortunately this defiant gesture failed to percolate the right message through as Indian men are quick to say, “How dare she cross the Lakshmanrekha!” She was deemed punishable by fate for overstepping the authority of the men. Today, despite women’s liberation and existing laws that support equality, women continue to observe this line of control. Why cant today’s women who are no longer hostages to the men, have the courage and the conviction to follow their heart?
To conclude I will say that women need to break the mental barriers and get over the Stockholm syndrome. Women need to believe that they are equal as by doing so, they will command and not demand equality.
This entry was posted on Friday, March 21st, 2008 (I migrated from blog.co.in)
2 comments:
I think you have done a pretty good job by enlightening women about their callibre and the knowledge that it's the time to awake from the slumber and analyse their own role behind their despicable predicament. Though I would not flinch away from saying that male chauvinists people can't yet be vindicated from their guilt of opressing women with their predatory instinct.
You have brought up lot of good points here. I would say both Indian men & women have contributed to the current status of women. Even today, there exists many men who feel that women are not meant to work, they are just meant to maintain the home, keep his food hot and his clothes clean when he returns home at the end of the day. And even after doing all this, his wife doesn’t get the respect she deserve. Common guys, when will you realise that running a home is also a job and requires mental AND physical effort? It pains to see examples of such men around me, even when I’m living in US. I guess, in a way, it just shows that no matter how much education, intelligence and worldwide exposure a man possesses, it hardly changes a person.
Now coming to the role women plays, there still exists those typical mother-in-laws who prefer a “gori si bahu” (thus the fairness cream ads). These type of women differentiate between their daughter and daughter-in-law. The daughter can wear jeans, skirts, and whatever she wants. But when it comes to the “bahu”, she has to drape herself in sari 24/7 as long as the in-laws are around. This is just one example; there would be many other set of rules to distinguish between the two. The question is WHY? Are this women blind or have they lost all their logical power?
The truth is India may have gained physical independence from foreign power but mentally we still carry on the ancient cultural baggages. The first step would be to shed those.
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