Maybe "we" are the problem

These days women empowerment has become the new hype. Everyday my Facebook TL is filled with feminist posts. Most of them talking about how women are deprived of their freedom, how they are constantly judged on their appearance and their choices, how men look at them as inferior beings and try to dominate them both physically and mentally, etc., etc. and I admit that I too have shared a lot many of them because, I too want a change in this orthodox outlook that people have. 

Generally while talking about this issue most people declare the male population to be the culprits. Infact, most of the posts I've read are targeted at the male population (actually almost all the posts are targeted only at them). We call ours a Male Dominated Society. How did it come into existence? Isn't making woman a symbol of tenderness and man a symbol of strength a reason for it? Because, clearly when given a choice, women chose to be tender and not strong, they chose not to be equal. Then how are only men responsible for this condition? There are some very popular phrases that women use while discussing the atrocities on women like, "All men are dogs/pigs", "It's a male dominated society", "It's all because of male chauvinism". There is this another very popular phrase that my mom uses 'Aurat hi aurat ki dushman hoti hai' (a woman is another woman's enemy) and I find it very true.

                       

All of us have seen those saas-bahu drama daily soaps. Did you ever wonder why those serials portray a woman in negative role, trying to spoil the lead female character's life? The bitter truth behind it being the female mentality.  Men don't tend to be interested in other person's life, but women do. We are jealous creatures and cannot digest other person's happiness or victory." And it seems apt to me. If we talk psychologically, I've always felt that women are more judgmental than men.

Have you watched Gumrah or Heroes? I don't know about the other crime shows but in many episodes of Gumrah and even of Heroes. They've shown how a woman manipulates her children or husband or both to think in a particular way about a girl on the basis of her clothes or on the basis of her company or her past or anything that she doesn't approve of. This is one of the main reasons rapists and molesters feel they have a chance with a girl. as they say, Not just the rapist but the whole society is the reason why rapes happen and society includes women too.

Dear Girls, let's do some simple calculations now, let's go down our memory lane and think of these common day to day incidences:

1. Living in a building or a colony or society you may have found people judging a girl on her dressing sense or on the time she return home or on how many guys she hangs out with and maybe even heard stories of her intimate moments with her boyfriend (trust me I have). Now calculate the number of times you heard them from an aunty and the times you heard them from an uncle.

2. You've surely received complement on your looks, dress, features, etc. (Because you are so fabulous darling!) You may have also received some tips and maybe some harsh comments too. Right? I bet almost all of them were from the aunties and the girlies in your friend circle. (You may have even heard "pata hai falane falane ne tere looks ke baare me kya bola?") and they will be like:

                               
3. Just imagine yourself in your friend circle, just hanging out casually when suddenly a girl passes by, wearing a small dress with a lot of makeup. The boy's will comment on her with adjectives like patakha, hot, sexy, etc. but a girl may even call her a slut out of jealousy or maybe just sheer judgement of the length of the dress. But, this comment will only be made by a girl, not a boy, in any case. What does it tell us?

                                     

4. We all hear a lot many rumors, even about ourselves. Now just calculate the number of rumors you have heard in your life. How many of them were targeted on a girl and how many on a boy? Certainly the larger number would be for a girl. Now remember the people who told you about them. Well, in my case I found that most of the rumors were made up and almost all of them were delivered to me by a girl, even the boys' ones. I have even met girls who make rumors about themselves and girls who just take a simple commentary about their personality as insult. But, never a boy.

After being in all such situations, I've become pretty sure that it's the women population that has discovered the parameters of measuring beauty and maybe invented those fabulous fairness creams because those  desi nuskhes we receive every other day were just not enough. These judgments just don't end here, They'll even judge you if you are too ambitious because according to them the role of a girl is only to get married and have children and make rotis. Get married before turning 28 or they will automatically assume that you are not marriage material. Also, if you are a loud mouth then your mom must have told you to shut up like a zillion times now because your mother in law wouldn't approve of it, nor any other woman in that house. Why are you never told that the father in law won't like it? Or why aren't you given such advices by dad? Well, there's a reason to everything.

Okay, Enough talk about others, now analyse yourself. Admit it, We all are culprits of judging other girls, sharing others' secrets, spreading rumors, finding double meanings in someone's innocent reply, etc. etc. I know we all are. No one can say the their hands are clean. You see, it's in our basic nature. There is a reason why Mean Girls was such a big hit and is one of our all time favorite movie. We are made like that. We tend to do it, But it's not like we survive on it, right? We can reduce it or maybe even stop it.

I'm not saying that only girls are responsible for the condition of women in society, I am no one to say that. Neither I'm an expert nor I have done any kind of research or survey on this, I'm just saying it out of sheer experiences. Maybe some of these experiences only happen to a small town girl like me, but in the end these do happen and we need to think about them, talk about them.

There was a time when feminists were ridiculed and it seemed like a bad tag to people for being called a feminist and this still goes on. It's time we change our perspective about feminism. Anyone who wants "Equality" for women is a feminist and it's time we stop blaming just the guys and try to bring a change ourselves, in the mentality of other and in our own mentality too. As Gandhiji said "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Write, share and read feminist posts, whatever suits you. Spread the word. Know what being a feminist truly means and be one too. Only then we can strive towards a healthier society.