Life as I find it

I am currently involved in an online debate about the conditions of women in society. As a self-aware individual, I am aware that I find the perspectives put forth extremely repulsive.

There seems to be a stereotype of “woman” that is endlessly needy, fragile and “requiring encouragement” for their “upliftment”. Worse, there are women who see themselves like that, rather than choosing to see what it is that they are doing that they could change to be in a condition they would enjoy better.

It is really superficial to say that women are victimized. What I see happening is a callous lack of looking beyond stereotypes. I see men victimized too, when their emotions need to be in a certain format for the world to acknowledge them as humans. Really, is crying the only symptom of sorrow?

What I see is a sheer lack of sensitivity toward self and others leading to messes that just don’t get solved with patchwork.

The woman is a victim, because the husband yells at her. Fabulous. Here, we are de-humanizing this said husband, who seems to be like a comic book villain, incapable of having anything good in him. What is really happening, is that there is a lot of emotion churning in this guy, that leads to him yelling to force his point home. Do we yell, when we feel that we are being heard? On the other hand, this woman is a pure victim, and someone needs to rescue her from the aforementioned villain. Does she have no responsibility for what is happening? Is she indeed so powerless that a person can come and yell at her and she will not respond? And if she is, how is setting her free going to achieve anything beyond changing villains? Because, believe me, there are plenty of people who are happy to walk all over people who will take it. We are de-humanizing the woman as well, by believing her as incapable of acting in her own self-interest.

Then, we have a whole rush of patchwork to explain how the yelling must not be done, and how the woman is a “poor thing” who is basically dependent on the man to do her a favour and change.

It happens in all situations. Yet, solutions are not looked for by looking at what people in healthy relationships do. Solutions focus on erasing symptoms and creating a “happily-ever-after” image ASAP.

Wake up folks, there is no such thing as happily-ever-after except in fairy tales. Good relationships require commitment from both  ends. They need acknowledgment of the other’s perspective (not necessarily agreement). I find a very subtle but important factor at play here.

This is our stereotype of men. “Men don’t cry” “Men provide for the woman” “Men are stronger” “Women are emotional” etc. This is reinforced so strongly with time, that even men who will proudly say that they cry at times will not be able to admit that they “don’t know” or “are helpless” when they are. What is really happening to the men here, when their emotions are not even looked at as relevant to their being? Is it any wonder that the few times we see emotions, they arise from frustration/desperation and come out with excessive force? Who wouldn’t use all the force they have to ease their own discomfort and make stand if they believe that it will not be heard?

An excessively possessive man, is looked on as an extremely undesirable thing. Yet, do we see the caring and wish to protect and need to continue being loved that drives that insecurity (even if we don’t want to be protected)? Do we see it? So, if his caring hasn’t registered, and he sees the object of his love doing somethig he perceives as dangerous, how many choices does he have that don’t involve “laying rules”?

Does the woman really acknowledge his love for her and reassure him that she will be careful, and not take unnecessary risks, or does she simply see the dominance and rebel or succumb? What choices does she have when her freedom is sacrificed that are other than rebellion or becoming victim?

I don’t see how we, as a society can lay down endless rules for behaviour and upliftment, without empowering people with self-awareness and sensitivity toward others.

Call me old fashioned or ignorant, but I am well aware that I am not entirely cues in to this feminism thing. I am female. I am a housewife, a mountaineer, a professional in multiple areas at my whim. They are all aspects of me. Why should it be that my being a housewife is wrong or makes me weaker in anyway? For that matter, why is there a need to have an exclusive label, if equality and empowerment is the idea?

Does being protected make something stronger? Is that equality? I think feminists are the biggest danger to women power, because they demand that separate platform, rather that empowering women to simply be themselves and powerful.

I think that this whole thing is so hyped and people are so aggressive about it, that all sense of perspective is lost. The original idea of setting women free from social pressure has now given was to the pressure of expecting a woman to reject all that is “traditionally” allotted a feminine connotation. That’s plain silly.

No matter how many women burn their bras, its going to be a hell of a long time before there are as many female construction workers as males and if it happened, it would be plain stupid and a mismanagement of human resources.

Rejecting traditional female roles and beginning afresh is like reinventing the wheel. I am a woman, and only one who doesn’t understand people at all will imagine me to be weak. That strength didn’t come from competing with males or insisting that I be the same as them. It came from being myself and if some expectations crashed, either from the traditional end or the feminity end….. *shrug*

Males don’t get PMS. Women have multiple orgasms. On the other hand, orgasm for a male is guaranteed. Men have more muscle mass than women, women do have breasts, and I’m not even going to get into the psychological differences. Just grab a copy of the Mars and Venus book.

I can understand how it is important for a woman not to be oppressed and how it is a violation of her personal rights. What about the rights of those who are expected to accept women even where they don’t believe it works?

I think woman power is not about “Equal-to-man” power. Why use men as a scale anyway? Are they an ideal? I think its not about woman power even. It is about being yourself and having the guts to go through with it, whether you are male or female. There is no point dragging gender in as a measure while claiming that the ideal is removing it from the public domain.

So people, figure out what exactly it is that you are trying to say. And yes, this is a kind of direct response to a “burn-the-bra” type who had the guts to look down her nose at me for being a housewife. I am a housewife, because I don’t want to land up for work everyday. What’s more, I have managed to figure out a life for myself where I can work 10 days a month at the most and afford to live happily.

I refuse to believe that my feminity requires me to slog 30 days a month to prove I’m powerful. If I can’t ensure my freedom, what power do I have?

So we now have a woman president. That’s nice. Honestly, I don’t care less if the president is a man or a woman, as long as they take the country into better days. I’m not really into preferring either male or female in most situations.

However, considering the long drive for women’s empowerment in India, I guess this can be seen as a shining star in its cap. Like my neighbour hastened to point out - “Not even the US has ever had a woman president - we are even more modern that them in some ways”. While I don’t understand the immediate need to compare happenings in India with the US, she does have a point.

Women in positions of power was not really a very big problem in India, its the everyday life of the common woman where the fight is. We have always had loads of them from warrior rulers and politicians, to social reformers, activists and educators and all other influential areas too. The percentage of women isn’t the same as men, but I can say with all honesty and pride that they are plenty and well respected too.

What I find remarkable in having a woman president, is that a president in India also commands the army. So its a pretty symbolic and powerful position for a woman in a society that is serious for women’s empowerment. Its a statement of trust and belief in capability. I like that.

I think this is not really a statement in terms of “woman-president” but actions speaking louder than words in the field of women empowerment. We have a person capable of leading the country well. That person becomes president. It happens to be female. So what? Its that “so what”, so easily typical of India, when its accepted an idea that’s the beauty of it.

With due credit to our neighbour, Mrs M, she has an important point as well. I did promise her that I would mention it in my writing. I don’t think she understands how ordinary a blog is - she thinks I’m writing important stuff that will stay on record for all time. In a way she’s right, but well…. its still ordinary in these times.

She wants to point out (rather triumphantly) that it is America speaking of womens rights and empowerment and all that, but have they trusted their country into a woman’s hands? Indian women are meek and mild, so they are easy to bully in some cases, but in other cases, they are just quiet and that is not a bad thing. When the time is right, see what is happening. An Indian woman is president, and the country is very happy about it.

I think this is pretty much the gist of what she is saying. While I don’t necessary with the “meek and mild and naturally quiet” parts of it, I guess she’s saying it like she sees it. I think she’s just not seeing all the bold ones out here, including me. For her, the typical Indian woman is still the one who’s quietly efficient, modest, and designed to drive me nuts through sheer lack of open communication.

Whatever, we have a new president, and I have duly celebrated the fact that she’s female. Now let’s watch and wait to see where our journey of development as a country leads.

Arrest after man buries twins alive caught my eye as I read on in horror. While the issues raised by the selective abortion of female foetuses creates a great deal of social concern for the future of India, I think it is worse that newly borns are burried alive after birth. This makes me think that perhaps we as a society, a government are imposing our morals on people who would like to have the choice of gender in their offspring. If banning the testing of sex of infants and terminating female foetuses only mean that these activities are done illegally anyway, if it means that the women undergoing those options may not even have the right to sue for any malpractices they may be enduring because of their act being illegal, if it means that babies are being murdered…… I think that somewhere we are creating rules for how a whole lot of people should have kids. We are not consulting them, their interests, their concerns, or their choice. This is creating far worse problems than the ones it attempts to avoid.

A father who kills his own daughters may be a murderer, but are we doing the daughters that get saved any favours, if this is the amount of hatred they will be facing in life? Do those families really want them? Will they love them and be fair to them, or have a grudge about not having a son instead, for eating up the family resources? Would these parents be expected to raise these girls as healthy, happy citizens anyway? Would they care about their education?

On a different note, I have a feeling that society cures itself over time through the consequences of its own actions. Today, we are facing problems with discrimination against women, harrassment, social unacceptability of a divorce, dowry problems, unacceptability of remarriage for widows, etc. If things continue as they are, society is going to fall short on women in comparison with men. This might just be what the doctor ordered to deal with the other issues.

If women become rarer, they will be valued more. Competition between prospective husbands will ensure an eventual death of the dowry system out of sheer competitive tactics to procure a wife in the first place regardless of money. Women may be respected more. Widows and divorcees may have better chances of acceptance and remarriage through the sheer need of marrigable women. A decrease in the female population will eventually also reflect in a decreased population. Even homosexuality may be more easily accepted out of sheer acclimatization through necessity. I think, this would not really be a bad thing.

Consider a family who wants a male child. They may want it to carry on the “family name”. They may want it for managing the property of a home in the future in an agricultural society. They may want it to ensure “their support” in their old age. They may even want it because they like boys more than girls…… Whatever the reasons are, they are their reasons. They are as important to them, as our vision of respect for women is for us. Who are we to dictate what they should or should not do with regard to their own children? We can influence, but if we force, we are forcing them into something they don’t want for themselves.

I hate the thought of an abortion being done simply because the child is female. I wouldn’t do it. That doesn’t mean that everyone has to be like me.

Consider this family we are speaking of. They want a child. A boy. Ideally, they want only one, because that is what they think they can afford. Great. They get pregnant. They would like to ensure that their child is a boy as planned. They go to some shady sex determination clinic. Their being shady also makes them be careful to stay under the radar. No one can say that the instruments they use or the procedures they follow are safe. This couple is already required to flirt with risk to the mother’s life and health through a need for a technology that is available through clean medical facilities as well, if not banned. Yet, if they want to do it enough, they will do it anyway.

This is for the poor and gullible. Those who can afford it can simply fly out of the country and test all they like. So it cannot be completely stopped anyway. These shady things happen by those with access to information on these illegal facilities. Others will go on to deliver and find out. If it is a boy, Excellent! If it is a girl, she’s lucky if the parents fall in love with her at birth, or the options ahead are far worse - being murdered, or being hated all her life for being female. What right to we as a collective society have to inflict this on them? Is this killing of infants already born preferrable to the hypothetical lives that might be born in the future to those who cannot figure out illegal facilities? I think we are hurting the rights of the parents to avail all available knowledge to make their planned child exactly the way they want it. Abortion is legal in India. So why this selective fuss to condemn those born to hate and violence at an age when they don’t even understand anything at all?

We as a society are bigotted rats. We impose our assessments of what is right and wrong very easily, but what are the factors we should really be considering? Should we be sacrificing female babies to their own parents to follow our dream of equal gender ratios in the “shining India”? What right do we have to prevent the painless termination of an unborn life only to force it to be delivered into a cradle of hate?

If India has less females in the future, so be it. This is what society wanted, this is what it will get. If they find out in the future that they don’t like this scarcity of females and they want more girls to be around, they can allow their female offspring to live exclusively as well, and make their choice. It is not like the massive population of India is suddenly going to go extinct.

As a woman in India, I find that the society is changing a lot in terms of acceptance of women as professionals, as bread-earners in families and as independent thinking individuals. Women have proved themselves as equals in many professions as well as proved themselves even better suited than men in others. The situation for working women is improving fast.

On the other hand, in the typical Indian Society, you find that there are still expectations and assumptions about women that are not so much relevant to their current status, but a clear hangover from out supressive past. This may be more obvious in rural societies, but it is extremely prevalent in urban ones as well.

I am speaking of “running the home” kind of stuff. Regardless of how hard the man and woman of the house work, there are certain areas of the home that are the woman’s province in happy times and her nemesis in not so happy times.

“As the woman of the house, you should….” is a familiar refrain for most women in India. I think, it is high time that we as citizens of modern India took a good hard look at our automatic assumptions and investigated which among these are still applicable today, and which ones we simply need to let go.

Typical situations we see include the woman bringing a cup of hot tea for her man returning from work, or the woman returning home after her husband and heading straight to the kitchen to cook dinner, and so on.

On an average, in any home where women are working, their income is also important to the well-being of the home and the living standards. Where it is not a question of money, it is generally possible to employ someone for the work in the house. So when we speak of a traditional role of a woman being responsible for the efficient running of her home, it is something we need to be aware of as an additional expectation made from her.

The traditional role of a man has been the one of earning the money for the running of the home. This has changed to a great extent. Working women contribute to the expenses of running their homes as well. However, there has been little contribution from men in terms of shouldering some of the responsibilities of women.

One interesting insight I received into this was from a friend. He said, “See, women find the outside world challenging and attractive. They like the freedom it brings to them. So they enter the world. There is no reason for a man to find the women’s traditional role appealing, so he doesn’t. No one has forced the women to step into the man’s role, and no one should force the men to step into a woman’s role”

On the surface, this seems to strike sense. However, the flaw lies in an assumption of curent roles that are the same as traditional roles and that the women are entering “a man’s territory”. This simply doesn’t hold true in most cases today. Women are educated and often have their careers well before they get married and it is as much their right as the man’s work is his. However, the other part, wher ehte men don’t find the house work appealing enough to invest effort in still holds true.

This is something that needs to be taken an honest assessment of. If we abandon the traditional perspective of division of responsibilities inside and outside the home (since it has already been broken in the outside the home area), we come to a situation where the couple are both inhabiting a home and earning and contrubuting toward its running. What we need to find is a sharing of responsibilities inside the home as well, that allows both some dignity.

This would also help resolve many situations where a man feels threatened by a working woman. Why wouldn’t he. She earns, she spends, she invests, and on top of that, she is independent in terms of being able to manage her own existence completely, including running of her own home.

There is no point pushing the women down. What needs to happen is the removal of the “un-machoness” associated with responsibilities at home and recognise it as the actions of a responsible and independent individual, whether male or female. This would actually add some power to the increasingly “lazy” image of men among women and empower them with some self-respect, while empowering the women with acceptance and support from the one source that matters the most.

Please not that I am not speaking of every man out here. There are many couples who are already on this journey and find themselves comfortable both inside and outside the home, and the mutual respect and closeness can be seen a mile off in such couples.

I sincerely think that this is an important adaption that is the need of today’s times.