10th May
2014: The day my Graduation
exams got over and the entire evening that I spent creating my blog. The long
discussions that I had with my sister over the URL of the blog, the title and
look of the blog all seems fresh in my mind. I still feel that same excitement
which I had then, when I published the first write-up on my still embryonic
blog. The fervor to express my mind on the blog grows every time I post
something. And this exhilarating journey continues further. Since my sister has
been a driving force behind my rhetorical style of writing and today we
celebrate Mother’s Day as well, I wish to dedicate this write-up to all
women….. (Read: To Men readers, I hope you join me in my feminine eulogy!)
Recently I finished
reading a novel. As I closed my book, a question crossed my mind. Which was the
best novel I had ever read? I got my answer in no time. It had to be ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ by Khaled
Hosseini. The characters Mariam and Laila of that book are two of my most
favourite characters among all the characters that I came across in novels.
Each page, each description seemed real. It was as though I was experiencing
affliction of Mariam and Laila as they suffered at the hands of their
acrimonious husband and further the immense courage that they show to
ameliorate their lives. Though the book was a work of fiction, I wondered how
many women would be there all over the world, who are silent sufferers of
injustice and whose screams for help are lost deep in this ruthless world.
In one of my college
events, we performed a street play on the theme domestic violence. My friends
and I discussed the apparent reasons of domestic violence. We came up with
situations like harassment for dowry, domestic violence by drunken husbands, women
tormented by husbands and in-laws in want of a male child, not only in low
strata families but also in well educated families. Domestic violence reminds
me of Sudha Murthy’s encounter with a woman who was set alight by her husband’s
family for her inability to pay dowry. This burnt woman, who was admitted to
the hospital for the mishap of ‘stove burst’, had further committed a ‘crime’
of bearing a girl child, which resulted into such heinous deed by her in-laws.
According to Indian National Crime Record Bureau, India has by far the highest number of dowry related deaths
in the world. A bride is burned every 90 minutes, or dowry issues cause 1.4
deaths per year per 100,000 women in India. Women are still valued like
commodities and are sent to the bidder-like families who quote a whopping price
for the bride entering their home. I wish if there is someone like Ananya Swaminathan of Two States in every family or is one
such friend to women, who can really find question the man’s true worth for his
bride!
There are some movies based on true stories
which are capable of touching the human minds. I saw one such movie few months
back: Philomena. The movie was based on the life of Philomena Lee, who was an
unwed mother and was separated from her son when he was an infant. The film
shows the 50-year struggle of Philomena to find her forcibly adopted son. In
1950s England, being an unwed mother was a matter of disgrace. In India, it
still is. This reminded me of another Sudha Murty’s vignette on unwed mother.
She describes how there is a difference between the outlook of the western
countries and India towards unwed mothers. On one hand, one of her students
commits suicide when she finds out that she is pregnant before marriage and her
boyfriend and his family refuses to accept her with her child, on the other
hand, there is a young Norwegian girl who has a son which is born out of her
affair with a college classmate. Though they split up, the little boy’s father
assumes full responsibility of his son. The child’s parents lead separate but
happy lives. The western society does not look down upon or raise eyebrows at
unwed mothers, which so not the situation in India. I read an article ‘When young girls are at risk’ in one of
the magazines. It focused on how girls are ignorant about sex and pregnancy
making them vulnerable. These girls are usually in the age bracket of 15 to 19
who then go for abortions. Some girls who accidentally get pregnant belong to
the educated class of the society in which the level of awareness is believed
to be high. In our country where sex and sex education is taboo, such cases are
bound to happen. Parents are uncomfortable about discussing such issues with
their children. As a result, girls become susceptible to unwanted pregnancies.
It happens that girls offer sex for love and boys offer love for sex. For
girls, love is an emotion while for some boys love is a sexual conquest. This
mindset needs to change and girls need to be alert and wise before falling in
love with someone. Love should not be so blind that we fail to see the possible
ramifications.
Africa as a continent interests me a lot.
Certain African tribes’ customs towards women brings me shivers. I had seen a
video of the Hamar tribe in Ethiopia,
where there is a ceremony of female whipping. The whipping is consensual and
women go begging to whip them. They do not show the pain they feel and they say
they are proud of the scars. One effect of this ritual whipping is to create a
strong debt between the young man and his sisters. If they face hard times in
the future, he’ll remember them because of the pain they went through at his
initiation. Her scars are a mark of how she suffered for her brother. In
Mauritania, girls are forcefully fed so that they find suitable husbands in
future. A plump girl in Mauritania is a symbol of family’s prosperity and
wealth. A frail looking girl would therefore not get good marriage prospects. Togo
is one of the poorest countries in the western part of Africa, yet polygamy is
legal and widely practiced. Practice of polygamy is frequent in the rural areas
than in towns and cities, and a Togolese woman’s level of education is also
directly linked to whether she will choose polygamy or not. Even the health of
African women is highly at risk due to the gruesome customs and lack of better
health facilities. For example, I had seen a case of a pregnant African woman
who had to go on a motorcycle with her husband on the hilly road till the clinic
where she could deliver her child. In Rwanda, 18% of menstruating women miss on
an average 35 days of school and work because they cannot afford sanitary napkins.
Therefore they resort to unsafe alternatives like rags, leaves and mud which
can lead to infections and diseases. Thanks to organizations like the Desert Flower Foundation started
by the Somalian woman Waris Dirie, that fights against female genital mutilation and other issues which women face.
One of the most prevalent dangers that Indian women face
today is that of rape and sexual harassment- be it at home or at workplaces.
Such inhumanity does not depend upon the kind of attire a woman wears. It is
the sick, diabolical mentality of men who want to prove their chauvinism over
women by imposing such atrocities on them. Such men emerge from families where
women are treated as inferiors and these young boys grow and mistreat women in
the same way. They cannot reckon the fact that women can and should step out of
their homes to get educated and stand on their own feet. Sadly men with such
sordid mindsets hail from the elite class of people too. This shows how
education fails to illuminate the minds of all. Women trafficking are also one
of the lurid cruelties against women. The shocking fact is that there is
underage prostitution too, wherein there are an estimated 1.2 million children
involved. God knows where our society is headed and how far can these merciless
acts against women go.
We have been living in a patriarchal society where women
are subjected to male dominance. But the times are changing and we the
transformation happening in form of an upsurge in women getting educated and
excelling at jobs. The myth that rural women are far from development is slowly
changing as we see a number of women being superb managers at self help groups
to run their families and earn a living. For those who feel that ‘women can’t
have it all’, there are glorifying examples of women who are not only wonderful
homemakers but also dedicated professionals. Being a feminist is not tantamount
to misandry. It is an attempt to elevate women’s status by exonerating them of
all the society’s unfair set of rules against them. It is a means to promote
the fairer sex of the society to a venerable level, just like we respect our
Goddesses. It is a movement which will not be successful without the encouragement,
sensibility and support of men. I believe the feminist movement will only be
successful if boys are imbibed since childhood to treat women with dignity;
they will surely turn into fine young men who will be excellent sons, brothers,
husbands and fathers.
