It was decades back that I saw Roger Vadim’s reputed film ‘And God Created Woman’ starring the French beauty Brigitte Bardot, who in those days was famous, not for her concern for the animals, but for arousing animal passions in men. Soon thereafter I came across another French masterpiece, Simone De Beauvoir’s famous book ‘The Second Sex’, which I read rather impatiently. But it aroused emotions totally different from what I had imagined – it made me feel uncomfortable and I started feeling sorry for women. I thought that God had been unkind to the female of the human species. Now looking back, I realize that I had got it all wrong. It is not the God almighty but the male of the species who has been unfair to the females, not only in India but across the globe and right from the beginning of the civilization.
The recently released World Population Report 1997, which has the theme “The Right to Choose: Reproductive Rights and Reproductive Health” focuses on the denial of sexual and reproductive rights to women. The Report says that violence against women may be the most pervasive and least recognized human rights abuse in the world. The Report gives the shocking figures that in India there is a rape every 54 minutes, a molestation every 26 minutes, a reported dowry death every hour and 42 minutes and one act of cruelty every 33 minutes! Is this cruelty inherent in the male character?
To this question, the Report explains that gender violence, physical and emotional, perpetuates male power and control, and that studies link violence against women to male socialization and peer pressure rather than to biology or sexuality. Thus, appropriate sensitization of young children to the concept of gender equality is likely to have a positive impact during the later years of life.
Some men quote scriptures to justify their viewpoint. After all did our texts not say that “three things deserve a thrashing – a drum, a village simpleton and a woman”! Surely no one would have advocated that women should be beaten up. Besides the physical and mental suffering inflicted on women by men, women also face illiteracy and poor health care. Do we still not see the sad spectacle of widows being deprived not only of their property but also of the basic human dignity?
Even in countries like the U.S.A. and France, women were kept away from the decision-making process by denying them the right to vote. As recently as a year back, a lone woman trainee in a prestigious U.S. military academy had to leave just days after joining because of the hostile reaction of the all male set-up. And we in India are supposed to look up to the West for cultural refinement!
A woman’s life can be divided into two curiously distinct phases – pre-marriage and post-marriage. She faces a total uprooting at the time of the marriage. It is to her credit that she manages this transition with dignity and grace. Unfortunately post-marital adjustment means, at least in the Indian context, that it is the woman who has to change her personality to suit the requirements of the husband and his family. And as if this were not sufficient, in some parts of the country, the woman has even to change her name besides of course the surname, at the time of the marriage. How insensitive can we males become!
With more and more women joining the workforce, it is a common, though grudgingly conceded feeling that women are more sincere, reliable and honest in the work entrusted to them. Add to it the fact that the new technology is gender-neutral. The male of the species is in trouble.
Women are coming out of their houses to join the structured work environment. The modern work environment does not differentiate between the sexes. Weather the worker behind the desk is a male or a female, what is required is the daily output of work. The male argument is heartlessly simple. If women want equality then where is the question of any special consideration for them on the workplace?
But the problems do not end here. The urban working woman faces discrimination at every step. It is she who has to wake up her lord and master- the husband- with a cup of tea and at least a smile. Then wake up the kids and get them ready for school, prepare breakfast and food and then get ready to go to her office. In the over crowded bus, she has to quietly tolerate lecherous looks, vulgar remarks and at times, deliberate pushing and pawing by men. The same person who misbehaves with a lady in a bus may be having a sister or a daughter at home and his blood would boil if someone were to misbehave with any woman of his family.
In the office too, harassment by male colleagues may not be totally absent. At the end of the day she has to repeat the bus journey back to home. And then she reaches home, harassed and humiliated. But even on reaching home, there is no rest for her, not even some soft, soothing words. She is supposed to quickly change into the role of an ideal housewife, cook dinner, clean utensils and help the children with their homework. She has no time to watch her favorite programme on TV. Totally tired, she falls on her bed. But alas her duties are not yet over. The heartless husband is waiting for his pound of flesh.
Women create life, give birth and thus contribute to the continuance of the human presence on this planet. Male of the species has a limited, rather momentary role, in the creation of life. Nature has kept the male away from the privilege of creating life in his body and of the curious phenomenon of experiencing pleasure in pain at the time of childbirth. It is the woman who carries new life in her womb day and night, sharing her own flesh and blood with this little life. And then comes the time when the tiny human being is ready to enter the world. It is the woman who has to go through labour pains to give birth to the baby. The ability to tolerate pain and the patience that it brings with it, helps her at other stages of her life too.
Even after the childbirth, the close connection between the mother and the child continues through breast-feeding. Here again God has given the role of nurturing the newborn to the woman. No wonder this results in a lifelong relationship between the mother and the child which no father-child relationship can match. When in pain, it is the word ‘mother’ which involuntarily escapes from our lips. Man may be the provider of the family in terms of financial or physical needs, but it is the woman who plays the predominant role in bringing up the children. In a sense, she carries the civilization further.
And then there is the well known though overstated fact of women being more beautiful physically, more sweet and with a more charming voice. Recently, the tough Cuban leader Fidel Castro is reported to have expressed his admiration for women. “Woman is the most delicate thing in the world… companion in happiness, pleasure, feelings, ideas and aims, in the past, present and in the future, one minute or a lifetime, woman deserves an irreproachable and sacred veneration in the inner most chamber of a man’s heart”, he said. Earlier, the famous Sir Francis Bacon had very pithily presented the reliance of man on woman in different phases of his life, “wives are young men’s mistresses, companion for middle age and old men’s nurses”.
Would it be wrong to say that women are embodiments of sacrifice? Who can deny the sacrifice of a mother for her offspring? We Indians would prefer to have a son rather than a daughter. But ask old people – the love, affection and loving care which a daughter has for her parents is far above the treatment meted out to the old parents by innumerable sons. It is women who maintain their equanimity in times of difficulties and sustain the morale of the family and when the need arises, can be really tough. It is not for nothing that in India women are considered the embodiments of power represented by Shakti or Kali.
No, women are not the Second Sex but the Superior Sex. I am sure that they shall overcome, not some day, but very soon, the infirmities and inequalities forced on them by men.
(Published in The Tribune, Chandigarh, July, 20, 1997)
