“Fear is a bad thing and unworthy of you” -Jawaharlal Nehru (in a letter to his daughter)
I am not a feminist. I am an avowed tomboy. I have been
pondering for the past half an hour, over what it means today to be a woman,
and my head is now a clutter of thoughts flowing in all directions, and I have
to write, to help it settle down in my head.
We all are raised by a set of beliefs, the word belief here
not restricted to a certain sect or religion (one could be raised with a belief
that one is a princess for that matter) and these beliefs shape the course of
our lives. So one is raised to believe that one is a woman, and the other is
raised to believe that one is a man and then they both are bogged down by
societal definitions of what one should or should not be. Well the
differentiation by nature into a man and a woman is purely functional. Something
nature chose to do to prevent over abundance for all you care. Like if there
was no split into two genders, then each individual would have an equal
probability of producing more of the same kind and then there would be no check
on the growth of population in the absence of predators (and diseases) and may
be Nature (coz my atheist readers may not like the term GOD) would have to
resort to earthquakes to gulp them down and keep a check on the growth of
population. All life forms would then reproduce vegetatively and I cant imagine
how the earth would be.
But since Nature likes to play dice, it decided to create
this functional difference and create two genders, so the male has to find a
female, and only then they can reproduce. And there, we should have been happy
accepting that as the only difference and lived with it. But the intelligent
humans that we are, we decided to take this functional difference a little
further, and created a difference in the functions performed by these two
genders. And then we had this whole differentiation into Men and Women and
their different functions in society.
There are those who argue that these functions have been
assigned based on physique and physical capabilities, but if one believes in
evolution then it must have been a
matter of evolution that women today are (in most cases) physically weaker than
men. (and there is another argument to
this that I will come to later...). So when someone says respect me, coz I am a
woman, I squirm, coz I would like to be respected as a human, and not because I
am a woman. A man deserves as much respect for being a man, as a woman does,
for well, being a woman.
So we now have a differentiation of men and woman, that’s not
purely functional any more, but is also of form, and the difference in form is
something that has materialised out of our heads coz it has risen from our
definitions of way things are meant to be. To create equality, this definition
is where we have to start with, we have to pick it up and we have to
disintegrate it. And by this I don’t mean making a futile attempt to erase it
out of our heads and everyone else’s , I mean working on it, slowly and
steadily, and erode it out of existence.
If we want long lasting change, we have to start with the
young ones coz they are mouldable, and coz we have given up on ourselves
anyway. So when you raise your daughter mould her to be a better human, rather
than a better woman. Rather than telling
her that she should learn to cook coz she has to cook for a family, teach it as
a survival skill, and so also your son. Send her to the gym, not to shape up
and lose those pounds, but to put on some muscle. Don’t raise her to wait for a
prince charming, and don’t make him fight for a princess, those only emphasise
stereotypes, tell them stories of real men and women. Shape them, to be
independent individuals, men independent of women, and women independent of men
so relationships don’t feel like barter system any more
We have been talking about the basics, about where to start,
but we are grown –ups now, and somewhat beyond repair, we have been wired a
certain way (though some believe its hard-wired, one could always argue against
it). After the general hullabaloo on women safety, I have advisories on being
cautious every time I step out, and it comes from everyone around, parents,
friends, and even that friendly protective uncle down the street. I am glad for
all these people, I mean I truly appreciate that they are concerned about me,
but beyond a certain point I can’t gulp down the fact that I should live in a
perpetual fear of being hunted in my own country. (I’d rather live every moment
and die half way, rather than drag myself to the grave and contemplate over a
life of regrets.) And after hearing this over and over, one does start feeling
dependent and this feeling of “fear” kind of gets to you. If every woman
started carrying an escort with them, we are making it that hard for women not
blessed with escorts. Think also of what you would be doing to their
confidence. If all of a sudden a woman not used to traveling alone, has to
confront a stalker, that’s surely gonna scare the shit out of her. For a change
I would like to free men from the onus of standing up for us. If we can fight
for our jobs, for our kids, well we did fight for our freedom, we can bloody
well stand up for ourselves and fight for our rights, our right to freedom.
Where to start? Go take that self-defence course you have
been dilly-dallying forever. Or take up a sport, or yoga, and build some
muscle. Know your strength. Which is the strongest muscle you have? How hard a
blow can you hit? Also know where to hit. Build some stamina. Self-defence techniques
most often only give you a chance to escape, and inevitably you will have to run;
you don’t want to be panting half way down a chase. And most importantly, fear
is the last thing you want to show on your face. Learn to stare people in their
face, in their eyes.
These are patch up solutions anyway. As I said before, to
create a society where one can live without fear, we should change the way we
think. Unless we stop objectifying women as well as men, we won’t make any
headway. If our choices (from our clothes to hair-do) are freed from prejudices
of form, and are more functional (like I wear shorts, coz they are that much
comfortable to run around in and not to expose my legs in some way) it would be
much easier to look at and deal with things. We are struggling with ‘ghosts’
really. We have to fight things that are there in our heads, so we stop taking
things at face-value.
And we need to stop celebrating crappy days, a woman should
embrace her existence as well as a man's, every day, and same is true for a man.
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