To
look is one thing,
To
see what you look at is another.
To
understand what you see is third,
To
learn what you understand is still something else;
I have had tears streaming down
my face from frustration, disappointment, and failures. There is absolutely no
shame in crying because tears taste better than self-defeat. Unless you’re a
woman, you won’t understand how invasive and annoying it can be, this unasked
for, completely random inquisition and abuse.
Research shows that about 100 crore
women across the world are harassed every day. What an alarming number. One
woman is raped every 22 minutes in India. One in 5 girls is sexually abused every
6 minutes. One woman dies for dowry harassment every 1 hour. The rate at which
marriages are falling apart, has increased tremendously such that, you walk in
a family court and it’s a fish market. The accused get away so easily that the
judge barely has the time to listen to your part of the story. To give you deeper
reality, there is no “Geeta pe haath rakhke kasam khao” anymore. The Holy book
Geeta is replaced with a Xerox on a cardboard which says “I swear by The Geeta”
and is tied with a string on a wooden railing and stays dangling there, unnoticed. What a shame!
But what is more shocking is we see seldom see women come out in open fearlessly and talk about the plethora
of harassment? To have been through a trauma as close to breaking the soul
from within and being finger pointed as “a victim” is physically, mentally and
emotionally taxing.
You might read about her. But you will rarely hear from her.
Have we ever wondered why no
woman in the world today escapes macho-ism altogether? Somehow it is egged into
her mind from the very young age that she is a born victim and is meant to
tolerate. In fact, she is locked into a pattern of inflicting psychic pain on
herself. Submitting always to the will and whim
of others, she perpetuates her own misery by living in fear that she would
somehow offend if she tried to stand up for herself.
As parents, guardians, teachers
and well-wishers we school the girls in our family to dress appropriately, to
cover-up, to speak softly, how to sit, how to eat. Of course, this schooling is
very much needed to maintain the grace and poise and to transform her into a
beautiful lady. That definitely is the way ahead. But what is also important is
how we help them cope up in trying times. There are some experiences you never
forget and that trigger a flood of emotions in the most unexpected scenarios.
For some people, wrestling with these emotional demons is a daily battle.
It is equally important to understand
that it is the same people’s responsibility to balance out the same teachings
to the boys in the family. Unfortunately, it so happens that the boys are
pushed towards independent life at a very early age. This practical division of
ingrained gender bias is what robs everyone of what is real and essential. Don’t
dismiss the tears in a boy’s eye as a cliche “Boys don’t cry”. That is when
they turn to show their violent streak and control the most accessible human
race - Women.
It is very easy to confuse what we do and who we are. The word “identity” is paradoxical in itself, meaning
both sameness and distinctiveness, and its contradictions proliferate when it
is applied to women. Point towards a woman and see for yourself that she is a
way towards an active, functional and fulfilling life with an identity of her
own and that surely is not of "A Victim."
Lady, you, alone, are enough!
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