But..... WHY?!

Disclaimer : I love men and if ever, I intend to marry a man! I am as heterosexual as can be! And that is my sexual preference, though I am also all for gay rights! This disclaimer comes in purely for those who think I am some deadly feminist of the dangerous kind and that I love male bashing. I love women bashing too and I promise one of my future posts will be about that. I am a humanist. Unfortunately its women who get more marginalized so I take up for them. If men get marginalized I will most certainly take up for them too! I am all for MAVA( Men against violence and abuse)! We need more organizations like these if atrocities against men rise and even while I type this I cannot help but smile! That most certainly is the sadist in me! Jokes apart, I love all equally. 

So this post is about systems and norms more than people. Those systems that self perpetuate purely because people choose not to think or question. They go on with blinkers. And the 'thinking lot' of people gets branded as rebels, feminists and activists as though they are some kind of terrible terms to begin with. My logic is simple! God or a higher power gave us an intelligence for a reason. We ought to use that to understand, discern, question and a lot more! Just because things have been a certain way does not mean they have to continue being like that. Kyunki aisa hota aya hai uska matlab yeh nahi ke aisa hi hona chahiye! (Somehow sounds better in hindi!)

I don't know the origin but I would like to know where and how the male dominance or superiority came in and why! Having said that I most certainly am grateful to be born in a progressive Hindu family in today's day and age where my brother and me were brought up with no difference and preference visavis gender. Yes my grandparents had a certain affinity to boys but I choose to let that go given that they did not know better, visavis their own upbringing and conditioning. 

Men and women are like ying and yang. Both require and complete each other.  That one is superior than the other, is as erroneous as can be. And if one were to still want to argue then women win hands down given that the universe chose them for child bearing and not men! To hold a baby in your womb for nine whole months and to withstand labour pains is no joke! Today we can exercise the right to have or not have a child is a different matter altogether and that is a welcome change too. It is an individual prerogative.But nature chose the woman for child bearing!  If that is not enough here are some more! Try waxing and threading. Try bleeding for 5-6 days each month and still go about your business as usual. Try battling crazy hormones that make it difficult for you to even recognize, let alone deal with yourself! Try managing the household including cooking, raising kids, homework, managing home accounts, all at once and a lot more. Multi tasking of the higher order but totally underrated. 

When I was growing up there was a perfect demarcation of labour whereby mothers managed everything at home and fathers earned the money. (In hindsight and even now, mom is much more proficient and an all rounder and dad gets lost without her! Talk about the spoilt Indian male.) No one was superior or inferior. They were meant to be like the two carts of a wheel which enabled the smooth functioning of a household. And personally I think that system still works perfectly. In a marriage if a woman chooses to take a back seat purely for raising kids, or chooses to work, I think it is her prerogative .Personally I would always choose the former for my own reasons. Personally and professionally I believe that in the first five years of a child's life the influence of the mother is paramount. If there are financial concerns then that is a different matter altogether and does not give much of a choice or option. 

While I write this I am still trying to wonder where the regressive norms and mindsets emanate from. To begin with, a woman has to leave her house, her family (parents) and go and live in a completely unfamiliar and unknown household where again she is expected to adjust and adapt. It is hardly ever the other way around. How many inlaws' families try or go out of their way to make the new environment conducive to her! She has to adjust to a new lifestyle and new food habits and everything else. She has to adopt a different identity visavis a surname and become this new and different person altogether. Its bad enough to be expected to change your surname, that some are made to change their name too is unfathomable. Imagine I am Shilpa Raheja, have been for forty years of my life. Suddenly I marry a person and I dont have a right to retain my name and surname. So for all you know from this I become say some Mitali Gupta! Makes sense?! To me it does not! We are fairly intelligent. Give me a rationale and reason that appeals to my senses and there will be no discussion or debate, but give me that atleast! Now lets go one step further. Why is it never proposed that a man change his name/surname! Two people marry. Same rules/norms ought to apply. I have heard ridiculous stories and cases where misogynistic norms compel name changes like my name maybe unlucky for my husband and he may suffer or die or something as ridiculous. Why is it never the other way around. Why are men's names and surnames not inauspicious for women. Brings me back to Shakespere's " whats in a name?"

Seriously why has'nt anyone questioned these things. Why do we have a herd mentality? From what I have realized it is far easier to follow the herd and not think rather than think and question because no one wants to ruffle so many feathers! Having said all this, if a woman is happy to change her name and surname and adapt and adjust out of her own volition so be it! That is most certainly preferred and welcome but if it is expected and imposed it is most certainly not on or fair by any yardstick! 

When someone says you can work if your inlaws allow you to, you can wear jeans/westerns if your husband permits you to!!!! These statements are as hilarious as they are offensive! Really!!?? Are you kidding me? I don't take permission from my parents for these and other factors. Why on earth should I have to be allowed or seek permission from my husband/inlaws?! Do women go and dictate to their husbands what they are allowed to wear or not. Can a wife tell her husband 'you are not allowed to wear jeans/ shorts?' Or you have to wear only shirts and trousers just like some women have to only wear sarees! Unheard of, right!? If this is strange and unacceptable, so should be the other bit! I don't think anyone will go out of their way to embarrass their own family by wearing something superbly obscene or indecent which at the end of the day is still subjective. Clothes are a very personal matter so is profession, food habits, modes of enjoyment etc. Men and women ought to have the same rights in all areas. If its ok for a man, it must be ok for a woman too and vice versa! Why the double standards and why are we ok with it?! Strange as it may sound, the people who have questioned and stood up, have done so only when their daughters had to go through something wrong or unjust. In these situations too many have the talent to overlook and ignore but most take notice and do the needful. Often when it is wives,sisters and mothers we just take them for granted and don't stand up for them. We let outdated and regressive mindsets influence our thinking.

Another pet peeve is the "expectation" that the daughter in law has to take care of her inlaws. In the same vein why does the son in law not 'have to' take care of his inlaws! Why are they expected to take care of themselves in their old age! I, for one, am more than happy to treat my inlaws as my parents but I expect the same from my husband. I need him to treat my parents as his and I want them to have a son, not a son in law in the same way that I want to be a daughter to his parents and not a daughter in law! This according to me is the most unfair norm/custom and it makes no sense whatsoever! Not like the others do but this one takes the cake! How much ever I try to understand I don't because there is no logic or reasoning behind these let alone sound reasoning! I am sure many might squirm and grimace at such content and may think that we don't live in an ideal world but then we only live in the world we create or that we which we allow being created for and around us.

And now comes my absolute favourite! How we as women are taught and told to be anything other than our true authentic selves and fit into molds created by society so that we are more appealing and less threatening to men! Be thinner, be more fashionable, apply make up, wear big heels, wear contact lenses are some of the many external ones while the internal ones are more on the lines of be less opinionated, be less verbose/vocal, be docile, be mild, don't be so strong, don't argue, tone yourself down, don't have a mind of your own and list is endless! We are told to be and become the women that men like however warped the criteria maybe and how much ever they propogate regressive stereotypes! How many times have you heard men being told to be the men that women like. The pressure is always on women. There needs to be unconditional acceptance of men the way they are but never of women.And the sad part part is that many women also think on these lines. Most disheartening!  Women are brought up constantly being told and trained to be good wives and daughters in law and that too from a rather early age. How many men are brought up with a training to be be good husbands/sons in law?! Ever thought about it!? Marriage is a union of two people, two equals but the man and his side is always given precedence and preference. Why? Are they doing the women a favor my marrying them. Don't they want marriage as much as the lady and her side ? Dowry is the worst of the evils in this rung. It is regressive to the core, treats women like objects and commodities apart from being burdens willing to be shed only against some form of bribery! Pathetic to say the least. 

Even at the end of this blog I feel the emotions of hurt, sadness, anger and extreme disappointment at the systems which make the woman feel lesser and teach her to always be lesser so that the male ego is fed and not hurt or bruised or threatened. Why are male egos so fragile and why do they need constant stroking? Why?! And why do women have to bear the burden of it at their own cost always!
Times are changing and I cannot disregard or dismiss that and it is heartening as well as hopeful! No one perse is to blame as we all tend to be willing victims of obsolete conditioning but we need a revamp of thoughts, concepts and ideas. We need to open minds a lot more and they ought to be willing. Women and men were both brought up with a certain conditioning which needs to be challenged and changed for the better. Parents need to do a better job at bringing up sons in order for them to be more sensitive and less chauvinistic. I am fortunate that today around me I see many examples of very progressive husbands and fathers who I look upto because they broke the molds and went against the tide. I do have hope for a better tomorrow where gender does not dictate superiority/inferiority and we are all entitled to the same rights and no double standards. Where there is no need to shout from the rooftops or prove that one gender rules. And it all starts with us, with each of us making promises to ourselves that we won't follow blindly and that we will get over and tackle our so called fear of the "what will society think/say?" Society is made up of a collective consciousness and once the individual changes that will change too!