On this Women’s Day let’s take a look at some of the virtues that society expects women to possess :
- Obedience: Society is obsessed with female obedience. A woman is expected to be an obedient wife, mother, and sister. While on the other hand, our scriptures abound with admonitions on the traps that obedient men fall into.
- Beautiful: Women have to be beautiful, and there is no other way out. Moreover, that beauty has to be defined in skin tones, hair length, and body curves. The glitter of that drop of sweat that perches on a dark women’s nose tip? The boldness of her mustache line? Upper lip, lower lip, chin- how-many threading cycles will it take to kill that passion? And the sag of motherhood?. Where does all that beauty hide?. Yes, every person is beautiful. You have to be beautiful to see that.
- Naive: “Pavam Pennu(an innocent woman)”. We love this concept. So Pavam Pennu cries when the bus conductor grabs her. Pavam Pennu whimpers when her family abuses her. She smiles as she tells her son “Ask your dad” or asserts power over him by saying “I will tell your dad”. Pavam Pennu is always quiet and shy. You sense her only in her absence.
- Fragile: Don’t tell her! She won’t be able to take it. You kiss her and she faints in your arms. You touch her and she is broken for life. She is pale when she is alone, and a damsel in distress who needs to be rescued.
- Motherhood is synonymous to Womanhood: This is the Sanghi myth that I love busting the most. I hate it when they address women as mothers sisters and caregivers. Have you ever called a stranger your father? Then why a mother? The whole concept of motherhood is hard-wired into the female brain, so much so that if a woman lacks the so-called ‘maternal instincts’ or is unable to bear a child, people assume that her life is unfulfilled. I have met mean, selfish, biased, rude scheming mothers, and the rigour of motherhood will not atone for their sins in any way.
So please stop labeling women into a set of categories!!
Should you be her friend, there are a plethora of possibilities in that word. So next time you meet her, simply call her by her name. She is not just a walking piece of flesh and blood, but an individual with thoughts hopes, success, and failure, faith and concerns. Smile at her, ask her if she ate. Ask her about her political choices. Ask her at what time she wakes up in the morning. Ask her about the books she read. Ask her what she does for a living?
Say hello, to a fellow human being, who just happens to be a woman.