I have been contemplating writing
my thoughts on this topic for some time now. If you count an approximation of 3
years as ‘some time’ then yes, sometime it is. And then Vogue happened along
with Deepika Padukone , Homi Adjania & 98 other women who seem to be
advertising for a black Dove soap in a grey cover. The last, much needed push came from
yesterday’s conversation with a friend who was dumbfounded on hearing my
thoughts and took many of his hats off during our conversation. By the end of it I had collected a bagful of
virtual hats from him. Now to the piece, lest I loose my thoughts to laziness
one more time.
I looked up the actual meaning of
‘Feminism’ in Wikipedia. Feminism is a collection of movements and
ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural,
personal, and social rights for
women. Right to vote, equal pay, equal work opportunities,
education, enter contracts, respect for her body, to own property et cetera. These
seem absolutely fine to me.
The problem lies in the warped
meaning it has achieved over years.
Since when did equal rights become the right to offend men, right to
look down upon housework, right to procrastinate pregnancy for your own
ambitious needs even when your partner desires a child, right to derogatorily
talk about other women as “O, she is just a housewife!” Well…sex outside
marriage is also a right which if she needs, so be it. But be prepared to lose
the right to complain when he has it tomorrow. Aren’t we talking equal rights here?
We have to accept that nature has
made man the provider. He was always the hunter. The one who went out to fetch,
the one who fended for his people, the one who increased the tribe and trained
it; to protect from predators galore. The promiscuity of men has roots in this
fact too (where he was always in search of healthy and fertile partner who
could give birth to more children and raise them for him) but will need another
write-up though. Not that the women have ever been immune from promiscuous
behaviour in the past. But in a sample size men have far outdone their fairer
counterparts and thus happily take the blame. Nature also made woman the
nurturer, the care-giver. The one, who gave life, nurtured the life, imparted
values. The basic roles haven’t changed much even today but we the women seem
to have a problem. Oh! The confused feministic streak.
I happened to
attend a sports event and an annual event in my kids’ school last year. There
is something eternally graceful about a woman’s curvaceous body when it moves
to the beat of rhythm and music to produce some enthralling dance moves. In
athletics, there was a 100 metre race of girls and then boys apart from many
other races. But the sheer energy exuded by the boys when they ran, the crisp
and well sculpted legs and hand coordination, the intensity on the face of
those 15 year old boys far outdid the pleasure to see the girls running. At the
risk of sounding misogynistic or backward, I have to admit that these are some
genetical pleasures of a woman dancing or a man running carried on era after
era which can get modified but not eliminated.
Coming back to
My Choice! On a good day it is eating potato chips along with a captivating
book and to be left alone in a room. But then my choice will be made into a
book not a small article which only I will buy. India has a vast population of
under privileged women out there in urban cities, small towns and villages who
do not have a choice but to work for a paltry amount of cash, come back and
cook, run the other errands around their house, take care of the child and do
much more as many of them probably have a man who lurks around a desi-daru shop
& beats her black and blue when she refuses to entertain his whims for some
moolah or sex. She is the real super woman who goes unnoticed, uncredited, unsung
and completely unaware of the choices Vogue thinks are important like putting a
surname after her name along with the hallowed red bindi.
Being a
woman is such a privilege. Isn’t it a matter of pride to be able to nurture
life firstly inside your womb and then outside it for the rest of the child’s
life? Isn’t it love which you serve along with the food on the plate? The emotions
and energy spent while cooking by a woman of the house, impacts the mental consciousness
of the one who eats it. Hence there is a word like ‘ghar ka khaana’ and outside
food. With cooks in many a modern households doing the needful what else can we
expect but a generation full of apathetic youngsters.
Aspirations,
independence, being able are all very good, to support your family or plain
yourself financially even better but the audacity to look down, to defy the
ability that nature has given her is when I have a problem. It is good to say “you
don’t own me” to your man but then so don’t you. This, in your face bluntness or
aggression is the kind of feminism which scares me. Womanhood is about sharing,
caring, adjusting and nurturing. We need to be proud of this fact, not ashamed
of it. There is merit to the statement when Indra Nooyi or Anne Marie Slaughter
said that “Women can’t have it all”. The trouble is when she seeks it all. She
should remember that if she can’t, so also the men can’t have it all. He can’t
wear pink pants or go on a devilish mode citing ‘those days of the month’ as a
reason. On a serious note, he can facilitate but not bear life. Only a woman is
capable of binding a house which can never be a man thing. She should revel in
the glory of what she has, the prime quality of being a nurturer and a
care-giver. Being a provider is
secondary for her and will always remain so. She may like it or hate it. Just like
being a provider/ protector will always remain primary for a man. Isn’t it a
fact that when it comes to choosing a partner, be it for a live-in relationship
or a marriage, however successful a woman might be she almost always seeks a
man more successful than her? Why? Think.
Walking
with the man and his family not ahead of him or behind him is true feminism.
