Are things really harder or different for women? We need 'Change'!

-Siddhi Somani 

 

 

Men and women are different, agreed! But we do live in a patriarchal society where most of the positions of power and prestige are occupied by men. We do have equal job opportunities for men and women, agreed again. But the man is paid more because he is MAN! Then the work doesn’t matter here! So in a literal meaning, Men rule the world! 

 

And this actually made sense a thousand years ago. Men and women lived in the world then where physical strength was the most important attribute for survival. The physically stronger person was more likely to lead. And men in general are physically stronger. Today, we need to understand, we live in a vastly different world. The person more likely to lead is not the physically stronger person. It is the most creative person, more able person and more innovative person, may be a Man.. may be a Woman!

 

We have evolved, but it seems to me that our ideas of gender have not yet evolved. Yes, I am angry, I am a feminist! Gender as it functions today is a grave injustice. We should all be angry and alike we should all be feminists! This happens everywhere. But I specifically want to focus on India. Why? Because, I am an Indian.

 

Here is what my point is. When we dream of a happier world, fairer for men and equally fairer for women, we must raise our daughters differently.. and also our sons differently. We do dis-service to sons by making them feel afraid of weakness, by making the feel afraid of fear. We teach them to mask their true selves because they have to serve the masculinity.

 

When a girl and a boy go out, always, always and always, the man is expected to pay. Why? Again, to prove his masculinity. What if both boys and girls were raised not to link masculinity with money? What if their attitude was, “whoever has more should pay” and not “the boy has to pay”. And by far the worst things we do to males is by making them feel that they have to be hard, is that we leave them with very fragile egos.

 

Further, we do a much greater dis service to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of men. We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, “You can have ambition but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful. Otherwise you’ll threaten the man”.

 

 

Here comes another question, if a woman is a bread earner in the family, she has to pretend that she is not, especially in public. Why should a woman’s success be threat to a man? Why is only she asked to believe that marriage is the most important thing in the world? Marriages are beautiful indeed. It is the source of joy, happiness. But again, why do we teach girls only to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach the boys same?

 

It’s easy for us to say that, ‘OH but women are more likely to accept this. But the reality is just more difficult and more complex. We are all social beings. The language that we use while talking about relationships exactly illustrates this. I think the language of marriage in India is often the language of ownership, and not partnership.

 

We use the word ‘Respect’ the one that women are asked to show to men, but it’s no other way round. We further hear, men and women in India, both at times say that ‘I did it for the peace in my marriage’. But the context in which they both use this phrase, drastically changes. When a man says ‘he did something for peace in his marriage’, he probably talks of giving up smoking, drinking, etc. But when a woman says that she did something for peace in her marriage, she most of the times refers to giving up her job, her passion.

 

 

I know a woman she hates household works, but she pretends she like sit, because she was taught to be a good home maker. The problem of gender in India is that it describes how we should be rather than focussing on how we are. Imagine how free, happy and easy it would be to carry no load of the gender expectation!

 

Boys and girls are undeniably different but socialization exaggerates the difference. Take cooking for example. Today women in general are more likely to do the house work than men, the cooking and cleaning stuff. But why is that? Is it that women are born with the cooking gene? Actually I had started believing that yes, may be women are born with a cooking gene until I learned that most of the famous cooks in the world are men, whom we respectfully call ‘the chefs’.

 

 

 

Yes, the time has changed. Today there are more opportunities available to women as compared to that of 60 years ago. But what matters even more is our attitude, mind-set, what we believe and what we value about gender. Gender is I suppose a very uncomfortable topic to have a conversation on because it no longer continues to be a conversation. People start debating.

 

Here, it’s really really important to note just two questions! Do we have gender equality today? You say yes..! Then comes my next question.. Why are we still fighting for gender equality? We all need to think about this and adopt whatever is good for the society and moreover whatever is fairer to both men and women!