By Arya Salimon Sudhilal
As the saying goes, it is a fact universally acknowledged that a single woman living alone in a costly apartment, must be in want of a husband. Or so he thought as he hounded her for days. Wherever she went, he was there, waiting and analysing when to make the next move.
This was not all just a game for him. She was his ticket out of a miserable existence and he was not planning on letting go of the opportunity so easily
He was convinced that he was in love. Love after all is an innocent emotion unbridled by one’s better judgement Her irritation motivated him, for she was in denial mode. The stage of acceptance cannot be far behind.
Why would he think any differently when the patriarchal society around him convinced him of his entitlement over the female sex after centuries of cultural subjugation of women. The popular mass media thrusts on him the impression of his sexual superiority over women. The most common plot line being, a man in distress falls in love with a woman, who initially shows her displeasure over his unrequited love, but later falls heads over heals for his masculinity and they live happily ever after.
Well, this is just an example of another victory story of a patriarchal worldview impressed upon the audience, slowly corroding their mindset and ensuring male sexual superiority and female submission.
In Indian households, where cooking and other household chores are the divine mandate of the lesser females , who are working or otherwise, it must come with no surprise that movies with “ladkiyon ko patana” theme are a hit with the general public and have even become a dystopian fairy tale.
We have come a long way since Pride and Prejudice, where Jane Austen presented men as a lottery ticket to a fantasy life. In the present scenario, where women are slowly earning their way up to equality in education and work, it comes with no surprise that the institution of women’s responsibility in society has doubled.
Burdened with gender roles the society has placed on women over the centuries the modern working class woman rarely finds time for herself and hence the rise of higher incidence of disgruntled employees amongst women work force.
A study conducted on 1,350 working class people found that 45% male workers were found to be happy at work, as compared to 37% female workers.
Finding work-life balance is a dream come true for the average middle class working women, who is not at the leisure to employ a help for her daily household work.
Adding to this hectic task of making ends meet, is the pain of dealing with stereotypical labels that the society lavishly and unapolegetically place on women at work such as “high maintenance “ “ witch” “disgruntled boss”- the perils of just being born as a woman in an unfair society.
As the unemployment rate soar, the rise of roadside romeos in the streets forces women to choose marriage as an escape route. Marriage, which is supposed to be a union of two souls has become a solace for many women from this patriarchal society.
The faster a woman learn to adapt to the random whistling, to the occasional sexually coloured remarks on the bus or the passing comment on the for of her dress or the size of her boobs , the more normal she becomes in society . All of these get protected under the umbrella of “boys will be boys”.
Of course there are laws protecting women from such remarks. Then, one might wonder why such negativity prevail even in today’s society? The answer to this is simple. Not everyone has the time, not money to approach the judiciary all the time. People learn to accept things that cannot be changed especially if you have witnessed it since childhood. It becomes “normal”. Only “high powered feminists” who finds an issue with everything , speak up against it. But, the truth is such random outcries cannot reach the grassroots of this mass psychological decay that women ensure in everyday life.
The problems do not end there. Even the women who struggle for a living, do not get equal pay as mentioned doing the same work. Women are exempted from visiting certain temples, mosques or becoming the pope.
I deny the god who turns a blind eye to one half of the society that they created I am left confused. Who is the real villain of the story ? The psychologically rotten societal values, the god themselves or the ones who wrote the religious texts ? Who is at fault ?
By Arya Salimon Sudhilal
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