As a person grows up in an Indian society one
integral thing he learns is that girls are the weaker counterpart of boys, born
to serve, never to lead. Is that so? Then why Indira Gandhi became the prime
minister of India in 1966 and not only led India but led it successfully for 15
long years? Then why are Indra Nooye the chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, MallikaSrinivasan the CEO of TAFE (Tractor And Farm Equipment), Nilam Dhawan the MD of
Hewlett-Packard India, Kirthiga Reddy head of Facebook India, Sheila Dikshit
the chief minister of Delhi etc? The list goes on but still they won’t accept
we are more than just flesh and reproductive system.
My story begins on a September afternoon in a
Moral Science class. Our teacher was on a leave at that time, so she was
substituted by a Jesuit father. And throughout his forty minutes class, he
tried his level best to make us understand that “Women are a beautiful gift of
nature; they are born only to give birth and raise their child!” This was said
in 2005- much after Rani Lakshmi Bai died fighting for her country no less
valiantly than any other patriot, Kalpana Chawla became a NASA astronaut and
Barkha Dutt covered Kargil war.
This has not been the only instance of
chauvinism I faced. I grew up in a society where certain streams are considered
safe and even the only stream a girl should pursue, where girls are allowed
higher education only to become ‘eligible’, where a girls’ marriage comes before
her education, where women are always demeaned, where only patriarchal families
exist. And even while protesting for justice for rape victim women are called
“painted and dented”, instead of passing stricter laws against rapists and
increasing security they pass order to ban skirts in school.
It’s hardly believable that in a society
where people from all over the world are praising and supporting Malala for her
fight against Taliban to promote women education, people are winning first
prize speaking against the motion in a debate organized by a premier university
in India on “It is only the filth in our mind and not the dresses of a women
which is responsible for sex crimes”.
People are still hush-hush about the word
‘rape’. We are not to blame only the politicians and the police but the youth
is the culprit too. I still remember the day when in our GD session even the
use of the word ‘sexual abuse’ brought laughter and smiles on faces, the day of
our alumni meet when during a women’s day special skit I heard wolf-whistles, laughter
and even claps when eve teasing and rape of a girl was staged and enacted!
But one question often crosses my mind when I
blame the men. Are men the only one to blame for the present condition? During
the enactment of the eve teasing I heard the stifling laughter of the girls of
our department. During the enactment of the rape scene I saw a look of
embarrassment on their faces. I read about a rape case where a lady helps his
male counterpart in kidnapping and raping a minor. I read and heard about
mother-in-laws abusing and torturing her daughter-in-law for male child – which
even goes to the extent of abortion multiple times till her daughter-in-law can
take no more and embraces death as her only beautiful escape. Seeing all these,
I am yet to find an answer to this question.
Whatever they may say, but in the end we live
in a society where even Laura Holt had to invent a male counterpart RemingtonSteele to attract cases because “a female investigator seems so feminine”. We
live in a society where a male child is still yearned for over a girl child,
where always a mother has to discard her job to raise her family and not the
father. Men are too obstinate to change this unconscionable situation.
All
this defines one word – chauvinism. I am often curious about the origin of this
word. I think the definition of chauvinism roots back to the fetus of this
society. This word defines the whole society. Since ancient times, this society
has remained chauvinist. Men have failed and that too have failed deliberately
to treat them as their equals. But what scares me most is that, the society at
large has turned into a misogynist society. Women, teenagers, even children are
raped ruthlessly, irrespective of whether they wear skirts or a sari, female
fetuses are killed mercilessly, immigrant women are denied jobs, girl
trafficking has increased at an alarming rate during the past few years. These
cases have increased so much that even the announcement of establishment of 1stWomen's Bank in India in the Budget'13 seems too small to celebrate for. It
grieves my heart when my male colleagues and batch mates use slang against
their female counterparts for so small a crime as being born as a girl. I feel
insulted and depressed when they express their feelings of surprise and shock
on any of my achievements. Can a feminist ever change this situation? It hurts
but it's true that even a million feminists can never change the present
mindset of men because there's a huge difference between nonchalant chauvinism
and voluntary misogynous. Still we fight
to bring that miracle which would lead us out of their shadows into the light.
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