The current belief systems that run the world have been largely designed BY men, FOR men. Women’s duties are clearly defined and are usually if not always more stringent than men’s. The well being, rights and benefits for women are added as post script and usually in a way that’s not enough, certainly not equal.
This is why I dare say women, whatever faith or religion they are born into shouldn’t subscribe to any faith as an evangelist, supporter or promoter of it for the benefit of their own gender and for the future of upcoming generations of women.
The world runs in such a way that there are religions and cultures that dominate by majority or are expansionists with a soft or a hard/aggressive strategy. When they are expanding, they put women on pedestal to recruit them while downplaying the subjugation they bring upon women when they become powerful.
The educated, privileged, in-comfort women then become promoters/critics or active participants of the religious systems. We see women playing social media warriors for and against various faiths all the time – however what is common amongst almost all of them is how oblivious they are to the challenges of women who live subjugated because of lack of access to resources or agency to their own life.
The keyboard warriors, the intellectual thought leaders of women who are being polarised to take sides with one faith too the other haven’t seen the pain of a woman who does not have a way out of domestic violence, polygamy, financial depravity, malnourished children, unaddressed health issues and unpaid labour etc. amongst many other challenges that billions of women get subjected to on the daily basis around the world.
Women need to act like ‘voters in a democracy’ if you will. Negotiating their rights, well being and resources while being asked to take sides and asking for unjust practices to be abolished. Our collective bargaining power is immense and hence the social systems are designed to keep us away from diverse community set ups. We have a great opportunity to use social media to put our collective voices to better use than be the sheep the patriarchal world wants us to be. To collectively ask for a better life, health, opportunities and standing than what we get.
Unless a faith or religion has women at the heart of its design and doesn’t treat them as an afterthought, it is not in benefit of women to become its warriors, evangelists or even subscribers of it.
Whether you agree or disagree with me, do share your thoughts in comments below.
There was a manual. No, really. Maybe not ONE printed and published manual available for sale on Amazon, and in bookshops. But a loose verbal manual of what an ‘educated, empowered, privileged, money-earning’ woman is supposed to do and be. The archetype of a good daughter, sister, wife, mother, woman, in law, friend, employee, employer, manager, citizen, mentor, founder, homemaker etc etc.
No one spoke about how life for the superwoman is a balancing game. That she would feel the guilt of not performing in one area more than the joy of superachieveing in other areas of life. That burnout is bound to happen when the candle burns at both ends. When in trying to ‘BE’ all that she must be, there will be a moment when she’d be emptionally numb, confused about what she ‘needs’.
The midlife burnout, hormone shuffles, shifting perspectives and the spectrum that goes from regret and resentment to gratitude and achievement and how the self oscillates on it like it is a damn Rollercoaster is R.E.A.L.!
This post does not have answers or solutions to the numbness that middle age brings to the overworked women in the race of perfection. This is a call out to those who’ve been through it, are experiencing it right now or are inching to it. To tell you, that you are not hallucinating, not going crazy, that your problems aren’t imagined.
The disillusionment, the disconnect, the soul searching that you are experiencing right now – you are not alone in this. There is a generation of super achiever millennial women who feel slightly exhausted with everything around them and question how far they need to run. Worry whether they will be out of breath before they reach that imaginary finish line. And as the quiet realisation happens – there isn’t a finish line! Noone to hand water or towel at the end of this marathon and so in fear of finding ourselves alone when we pause, we keep running.
Maybe it’s time to slow down girls, pause even, for a while. Practice some self care at the cost of what seems non negotiable. Nothing is in reality. If this post makes even slight sense to you, you need to prioritise yourself over literally anything on the daily for a while. Guess what? it’s time.
Not too long ago, there was an unusual post on my mostly professional LinkedIn feed. It was a man’s video about his 17-year-old daughter who was suicidal because someone had circulated inappropriate pictures and videos of her on social media platforms. He had made the video as an open ask to anyone who worked in the social media companies to help him take down the racy pictures and videos and kept asserting that the videos and pictures were fake. Some good Samaritan took notice and within few days the posts were taken down, he mentioned in a new video. I hope life went back to normal eventually, I do suspect that those effected, especially the girl will carry trauma and scars to show for a while though. Why did he have to plead the ‘innocence’ of the girl though, it made me wonder? As a society why is it important for us that a girl (or boy) is not seen publicly in a certain way in order to have permission to live respectfully? Even if their personal or intimate side is being shared without their consent? What are these stupid rules that we have invented on the way of becoming an evolved society?
There is an increase in deepfakes; the necessary evil accompanies the new age tech defined by artificial intelligence and its growing impact. We’ve seen a lot of movie stars, women and celebrities vehemently justifying on news over past few months that a certain video or photo of them is fake. What made it important for them to invest their energies in so fervently denying that it in fact wasn’t them in the said clip, than focusing on their work and life? What does that say about us a society? The recent announcement of Sora which can make videos on commands and the samples they have shared are a great example of how AI can be misused by those evil.
I remember back in 90s small town India, one would see vulgar sketches of women in offices and girls in schools specially in public areas like washrooms along with rude comments. I vaguely remember a scandal from my small town where the scorned boyfriend of a respectable girl circulated her naked pictures and she hanged herself. Porn has brought its own pandora’s box with it to denigrate women. How many of you, especially women, have secretly not wondered that a clip of yours trying clothes in a changing room or bathing in a hotel or any other discreet activity maybe available on some random porn site that you aren’t even aware of? How many of you feel scared that once something like that is found, even if you haven’t done anything wrong, your life and family will get impacted in a major way and your social life will be destroyed? Wondered if you’d feel like ending your life if something like this happens?
Technology, modes and levels of threats have become more twisted but the basic nature of toxic side of patriarchy where the last resort to fight back a strong and powerful feminine force is to shame, denigrate and defile her remains constant. Parents of girl kids of all ages even today worry about dangers looming around them; how delicate the girl’s ‘honor’ is and how her standing changes with one tiny leak of an intimate moment, an indiscretion. God forbid, if a respectable woman is seen by others naked or kissing or in the act of copulation – her whole character is assassinated for life. How on the contrary, senior Male politicians of current opposing national party were found in intimate acts in videos that went viral and those gentlemen are still relevant, worshipped, rich and powerful – very much the political figures in parliament. How a certain president of a powerful country was found exploiting an intern still smiles shamelessly remaining a man of power while the woman is to date judged for being the culprit. It is because this difference in how we judge women so much more than men, that the father of the teenage girl was left overtly justifying that the videos are deepfakes. In a better world, it wouldn’t have mattered for the girl that her unintended videos were uploaded, and the perpetrator would have been identified and punished along with those who participated in the circulation. With AI now this issue will become even bigger. Any scorned guy or girl who is pissed at another can create a vulgar deepfake and make it viral. What is the solution then? Keep trying to prove that a video or photo is genuine or not? Lock women int homes? Ask women to be super cautious and on guard?
Here is another way to look at it. What if we as a society stopped judging women on any explicit photos or videos or any other artefacts of them? That our opinion of them didn’t change a bit based on that information? Picture this – you see a colleague, friends, family member or acquaintance in a link that shows them in a sexual way meant to harm their reputation and it didn’t matter to you. You didn’t want to know whether the video or audio or photo is real or fake. It’s the one circulating it who’s punished, than the woman herself. She can still be your daughter in law, wife, boss, colleague, sister, sister-in-law or whatever it is that defines your relationship with her. Let us take the power away from the very act of baring a woman’s body, associating her honor with her sexual conduct – real or perceived. What if like men, we associated women’s honor with what kinds of humans they are? How they contribute to the society in the working or homemaker roles they are in? What their talents and hobbies are? With the way deepfakes amongst other AI features loom large – it is common sense, humanity, courage and a shift in perspective for good that will make us a better society. We don’t need to be spending our time identifying real from fake for this issue- we need to be changing our thinking on what defines goodness or badness; someone’s acceptance and respect, dignity and honor.
What if we killed the mal intention itself than judging someone who is a victim of having their privacy breached and misused?
There is a short movie called ‘sleeping partner’ that features Divya Dutta in an OTT short story series called ZindagiinShorts. Do watch it for how she coolly and powerfully responds to a scorned lover threatening to make their intimate videos viral. It’s like watching the Goddess at her work! THAT is the fearlessness we need to enable in our girls. We need to ensure the environment in our houses makes them fearless, powerful, and not anxious about someone trying to show them as immodest. Modesty is not something to be proven. It also isn’t without power. We need Madonnas and Devis in our daughters, mothers, sisters and women who cannot be broken by stone pelting evil minds so easily. They need to accepted in various divine feminine forms that celebrate thier femininity rather than shaming it.
As I write this blog, an AI icon hovers on my screen asking me to help write as if I the obsessive thinker and possessive writer will let AI write for me(!); AI is everywhere! Compassion and empathy and goodness in our toolkit is what will help us survive the madness. If the feminine is denigrated, we will dive the depths of darkness very soon as a society. Let’s kill the need to verify if an artefact meant to put a woman in corner is real or deepfake. let’s measure people on their humanness than trivialize them on a scale of sexual morality which by the way keeps changing every 100 years in human history.
Our girls need to be able to breathe. They need to be able to be validated for their talents than their looks. They need to feel empowered without worrying about what is available online about them to ogle. Let’s kill the power, enigma, titillation and scandal around explicit imagery used without the consent of a person and orient our kids towards what makes them better human beings, one step at a time. And this change begins from our own homes. What do you think? Can you do that?
Its become customary for us middle aged people to go melancholy on special days or anniversaries and decide to share our musings with the world. I am quite the cynic about days dedicated to women in a world when our curses are based on womens genitalia that we spew like caramel in a range of emotions and use surnames of father for children by default while women carry the foetus and go through the tribulations and joys of growing the child inside them. So as a feminist who truly believes women have it tougher, I want to celebrate women’s day, a day when we applaud women for standing up for themselves and others, for making the world a better place.
There is a very common and overused phrase which says women are women’s worst enemies. We are blamed for telling on each other, being jealous, not being trusting of our kind, being judgemental, putting each other down and loathing each other. On a lighter note there is also a saying that if women ran the world, there wont be many wars, just few jealous countries not talking to each other!
How can we change this perception? What can we learn from men that will teach us to be kinder to our own gender? Have and show more camaraderie?
Before we answer this question we need to understand why these perceptions are there in the first place? Why cant women catch a break from other women! I am going to compare this to the colonial conditioning of developing countries and I am going to talk about urban India as an example. Three or four generations have been born in India post independence and there still is a strongly prevailing shame and loathing of our cultural heritage. In urban India, my own friends and colleagues for the longest time have taken pride in not knowing hindi numerals. Hindu friends are ashamed of their religion and hyper critical of even the good parts of their faith. Friends from other religions in India also like fellows of their faith from other countries better than their countrymen. This certainly is not to say we all need to become blind followers of what is being presented but have a rationle and objective view of what is good, be proud of the good things from our heritage and not feel embarased of our identity. But taking example of countries who’ve been on this journey we know it will take a littke while more for this awakening to take place.
Similary, I’d argue women have been hearing inferior remarks on their gender, explicit or not for thousands of years. What they witness as children on roles their female family members play, their place in the household and how they express their own frustrations in homes generally led by a patriarch have lasting impressions and shape their own identities. Many of us have seen aunts and sisters in law coming to our homes as new brides who have a fairytale notion of what a daughter in law is, who are ready to be doormats to be that person who keeps the family together and happy. With time many turn into these vicious and angry monsters that they are capable of potent toxicity that can break families apart and sow hatred. What causes that change? What goes wrong? Their treatment? Inclusion or exclusion from family decisions? Expectation to serve continously with great criticism and not enough reward? Not having a voice, seat at the table and general respect? Theses have been written on the subject but you get the general idea. The same DILs become MILs, the same nieces become aunts and keep the cycle of abuse on. The generational curses just dont break. Funnily enough we see these behaviours getting repeated at workplaces where many women dont want to work with female bosses.
Most of us who are reading this piece, I, who is writing it, how can we be sure we won’t turn into someone who will enforce gender stereotypes when we have a choice to not do so? What can we do today to ensure there is a high possibility we dont do so? Whoever you are, I can give few tips to ensure you play a positive role in lifting women up, uplifting the society thus:-
Be a Feminist:- unapologetically so. There is much bad press about feminism that women are embarassed or scared to call themselves feminist with the fear of backlash. Feminism isnt burning bras or putting men down anymore. Its about supporting choices women make, not being judgemental and celebrating women’s successes – be it baking a cake or buying a house, being a mother or being a gypsy, being a homemaker or being a soldier at the front. Or both. Or nothing. Feminism isnt anti men and noone should be shamed for being a feminist
Mentor a woman:– whatever your profession, education, society, culture, choices be – there are always girls and women around you who you can help teach something new. Be it a technical or domestic skill or a mindset shift or something new. Find a mentee every year and help them with a skill that will make them better in life. There is no better way to grow and feel fulfilled than teach, guide or mentor someone. Leadership isnt always done from the corner office of an MNC or a seat of parliament, we all can lead this way from we are
Do not Retire:- This advice is generic and may not suit those with conditions forcing them to retire but if you have a choice, keep doing something. Keep being useful and meaningful to yourself and society. People who have a purpose in life stay happy and healthy for much longer till they are alive. Life doesnt end at 65, it begins then. Women who keep themselves constructively engaged find lesser reasons to give into their subconscious conditioing of finding it harder to trust fellow women and be unhappy as a result.
Love yourself and keep learning:- Give yourself time, make yourself a priority, be your best friend and admirer, keep learning something new, travel and open your mind. When you strive to become the best version of yourself, the process gives you a lot of liberation of mind to love others more than judge them. Unhappiness drives us to create misery. Our inner ha[ppiness doesnt always depend on a prince charming as the social conditioning would have us think. Independent women in fact make better partners than co dependent ones.
Keep good company:- The biggest mistake we make is deprioritsing our network to priorities that take overlike home, work, partner, children, family. Keep a good circle and make time for it. We become the average of five people that we spend time with. Find men and women to be friends who are ambitious, kind, well travelled and curious to learn. Talk to people about ideas than other people. Opinions are the lowest form of judgement. Avoid people and friends who’s priorities in life are not the same as yours, who dont want to learn or become better. Speaking ill of others doesnt add anything to your life. People who find it cathartic are fooling themselves. Its so much more invigorating to create, ideate and build than rant. Women are creators through their being. Channelise that energy to create, invent and discover all you can.
Celebrate and Praise often and generously:- Give a shout out to fellow women more frequently and be generous with your praise. Women play multiple roles in life and do not get enough praise that they deserve. We need to be each others cheerleaders before we can expect the world to do the same for us. If you praise another woman, you dont become smaller – if anything that raises you more.
Community – build and participate:- We all know there is unity in strength. Women need to unite than be divided. We need communities, support groups where women can feel involved, safe and validated. Reach out and build one where there is a need. Participate where you find your calling. Give back to other women in need through your guidance when you rise. Support charities that help women through vounteering and other ways. Let’s build each other up.
Women around the world celebrate this wonderful day today. I dont believe women are better than men or vice versa. Women just need equal opportunities and treatment, fair game and no stereotyping. We can expect, teach and enable the next generation to be better but its also great to watch ourselves. Are we prepping ourselves for a more equal world tomorrow? A question worth asking ourselves. What will you do differently untill the next women’s day?
Nehapedia 