Women.
I’ve been reading a lot of magazines and blogs lately and I came across many articles/sites on feminism. Jasmine’s Blank Noise Project, I must say, is worth more than just a visit here. All the fuss and the parliamentary drama about reservation for women in the parliament, has been as entertaining as thought-provoking. Tehelka featured an interview with Renuka Chowdhary, where her sentiments were voiced aloud when she said that women’s reservation is a ‘process of educating men.’ I, for one, think that the women’s reservation bill is completely baseless and the women who have what it takes to get elected to the parliament, eventually will. But the question is- how many of the already well-established women MPs have done anything for the women of this nation? The political party seems to influence our women MPs more than the actual issue itself.
Being the AP(=Aand Pakaav) guy as I am, I have a habit of getting into long conversations with the auto rajas of Namma Bengaluru. Roughly an hour ago we were stuck in a traffic jam and I noticed that the bikes ahead of us had young women riding them. On the right was a taxi driven by a woman and to the left another woman-driven car. The autowallah started cursing the traffic problem in Bengaluru and his fate of being an auto driver in a city like this, probably in hopes of asking for more money when I get down and actually getting it out of my sympathy towards him. His complaining did not end there :
Auto Raja : Saaaar…aenidu…..phullu hudgire gaadi bidtaa iddare eegeega….heegaadre namma deshada gati aenu saaaar?
Me : Hudgino Hudgano gaadige hege gottagatte annaa? Gaadige tondare illade iddaga namagyake tenshannu?
Auto Raja : Neeven hudgir supportarra? Ondu maat heltini keli : Nimma hudgina heege tirgadakke bidbedi saar. Namma brotherru kooda heege.Aeno computer kelsa madtaane. Hadinaaru saavira sambala baratte. Avana hendteegoo ashte barodu. Naanyake mane kelasa maadli anta keltale yamma. Aenulitu avana gandastana? Hengsige idu shobhe kodalla alva saaaar ? Nangoo eradu henn-makkalu iddare. Avaroo odbeku antare. Odstini no praablem aadre odi odi heege ( pointing to the women around us) aadre yaaru saar maduve aagovru?
Me : Maduve yaake beku saar ? Tamma kaala mele taavu nillabeka athava yaaro kudka gandana mane kelasa maadbeka?
Translation :
Auto Raja : Sir..What is this? Girls are driving all the vehicles these days. What will happen to our country if this continues?
Me: Why should we bother when the vehicles themselves don’t care if it’s a girl or not?
Auto Raja: Are you a supporter of girls? I’ll tell you one thing-don’t let your girl roam around like this. My brother is like this only. He does some computer-related work. Earns 16,000 a month. So does his wife. She says she alone shouldn’t do work around the house. What remains of my brother’s masculinity? I have two girl children too. They say they too want to study. I am ready to send them for education. But if they become like these girls(pointing to the women around) after studying, who will marry them?
Me: Why is marriage necessary? Do you want them to stand on their own feet or do chores in some drunk husband’s household?
Auto Raja: I don’t know all that. I know I am right. You will realize it too after a few years.
The blog entry on Saxicola Ruberta’s blog here got me thinking. As a young, educated (?) man, how am I a part of this huge problem? Does studying in a college of national repute mean we’re more civilized and understand this problem better? I beg to differ. The condition of girls in our college is common knowledge to any NITKian. Saxicola Ruberta’s article confirms that the problem exists in NIT, Surat too. The so called ‘open-mindedness’ that is supposed to have arrived with the IT revolution in Bengaluru seems to be limited to certain sections of the society. God knows how much of this ‘openness’ is actually equality.
Pucca Hindutva activists(the political stereotype) try to be pro-women when they stop the ‘exploitation’ of women like bar dancers and cheerleaders by ruining their means of livelihood, but come home to women in ghoongaths not allowed to go outside( I personally know many such people). Rape is ok. Molestation is not a problem. Eve-teasing is fun. But women earning their livelihood on their own will is a heinous act? What logic is that!
Traditional saree-clad women find it wrong when another woman wears the kind of clothes that they broadly classify as ‘jeans-tshirt.' It is a woman who teaches her daughter to worship her husband and serve him all her life. I know a case when a friend was ‘eve-teased’ by one of her family friends. The girl’s mother blamed the girl for wearing ‘t-shirt-jeans’ and asked her to avoid him while the father wanted to confront the person for saying the downright dirty things he did. The general mentality is that it is for the girl to avoid such things and it is in the nature of men to be like that.
As a man, I do feel like turning around and checking out the hot girl who just passed by. I know it is the same with my friends(a generalization, actually.Depends on the orientation). But knowing how she would feel, I choose not to turn. As a board in Bocha Grande in Koramangala says : "Use your conscience.Look. Dont Letch." Men should take responsibility and learn some public manners and stop blaming it on the girls’ dresses or their own ‘nature.’
Equality, I feel, should start at home. Parents should start treating the male child and the girl child equally. A mother should empower her daughter to stand up for herself in cases of misbehavior(and otherwise too) and give the necessary moral support. Boys should be taught to respect women for who they are and their fathers should set examples for them(many married men when with their wife and kids stare continuously at my women friends. Happens all the time!)
A few things you can do to start the process of change on a large scale :
1) When someone ‘eve-teases’ you, confront the man. Lynch the bastard in public. It is very insulting for a man when this happens.(check out Blank Noise Project's Action Heroes here)
2) Stop taking you-are-a-girl shit from your close ones. Particularly your mother.
3) Do you want your daughters to live in societies like this one, too? If you don’t, then get rid of the leave-it-yaar-it-is-common mentality and stand up for yourself. Be it your teachers, classmates, relatives or any passer-by on the street. People will not care about what happens to you unless you do. Such things will continue if you don’t protest.( A few of us offered to help a girl, a friend, when ‘something wrong’ happened with her and she refused saying she doesn’t want it to be big news. We can’t help it Ma’m if you don’t care about it yourself. It will happen again in the future when we won’t be around to help and everyone will know then that you won’t do anything about it.)
Revolutions don’t happen in the newspapers or on the television. If your life should change, you should be the one to start with. Trust me, there are enough sensible men alive in India today to support.
4) Ask your friends to read this blog entry and link me in your page ( just kidding ;) )
There's a long way to go.
Once again, kudos to Jasmine and group’s Blank Noise Project.
7 comments:
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Nice post. I completely agree about the reservation thing. There's this debate on NDTV and women argue so vehemently about the reservation issue, it's astounding. And the whole pro-women moral policing blah blah crap is shaata! Where do they pull this stuff out from?
And what are you known as in the DCPP circles?
How can you see me on DCPP now? It's holidays.
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Meticulous.
At least half of it spell-checked over MS Word.
Lol.
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Sruthi Hariharan, I first thought, but you refuse to be a female.
Could it be that you are Suhas R Rao?
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@layfield : vote bank politics, my friend. they seem to have realised the women have started to play a big role and its a matter of tapping the potential. i'm known as widmann in dcpp circles.by 'these days' i meant the last few months before we left college.
@melancholic: 1) i dont refuse to be a girl. its just that i'm simply not one. come to think of it, i wouldnt want to be one..more than just happy with what i am.
2) How can Suhas R Rao's initials be S.H.? You got the batch right. suhas and i were in the same class in first year.
and you are?
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Aah, the last few months I was under different names. SH SH...don't know anyone whose initials are SH.
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I definitely agree with this:
Parents should start treating the male child and the girl child equally
I don't know when people will start treating their daughters as "human beings" rather than like "hot potatoes" trying to pass them on to someone as soon as possible...
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Erm... I am little confused. Were you ever a Mr. H?
Anyway I really relate to this post. I met a similar auto driver a long time ago and was so bleeding angry at his attitude I couldnt think straight for days. Which is probably why the post I wrote about it doesnt sound altogether sensible to me when I read it now, but nevertheless, here it is.
http://auburn-leaves.blogspot.com/2007/05/prehistoric.html
I SINCERELY hope there are fewer people like him around today.
