Cursed by birth
I would recommend all the girls to read this article by Jyothirllata Girija, in Hindu Open Page (October 9). This article has been an eye opener for me. It made me realize that we may unknowingly have been 'doing the worst disservice a woman could do to men in general, and to herself in particular'. I never realized that most modern dresses are so indecorous as to 'make even decent men indecent'. I dont understand what kind of decent men is she talking about who are forced to rape a girl coz she may be wearing a revealing dress. And I dont understand why rape is such a stigma for the victim while the perpetrator breathes free.
The article is disgusting not only coz it makes all the women feel 'cursed by birth' but also its very unfair to all those men whom she demonizes to every extent possible, blames them to be 'born as such' and advices the girls not to 'add fuel to the (already) burning fire'. Sure there are a lot of problems that a woman has to face but not every man is bad and let us not alienate those unbiased people by deliberately passing such statements.
Now this reminds me a very important lesson in my life. Every person is responsible for his own fate. People pls stop blaming men for women's pathetic condition. Lets remind ourselves that still exists a majority of woman (like our dear author) who call themselves 'feminist' and still endorse the ideology of woman as sex object. The solution is not to cover urself at all the possible places, and to maintain distance from every man, but to change the image of a woman. Before talking about our rights and freedom, let us be convinced of our images in our own minds. Once we are sure that 'yes, we deserve respect' can only we command it. Not calling urself a feminist and not demanding special privileges can be the best thing u can do. The word privilege has an inherent bias in it. Avoid it.
Alienation between the sexes doesnt protect u, instead makes u more vulnerable. I remember the time when I joined IT BHU. During the ragging sessions we had heard so many horror stories abt IT BHU guys from our dear seniors that we felt they are goin to rape us at any slightest provocation. The word 'sexy' used to be a taboo. Wearing sleeveless was unimaginable. Visiting Limbdi Corner was prohibited for gals. But things have changed so much since then. Not only did we discover that the guys are not at all bad, but possibly they r the best companions we can get. The alienation only helps in building distrust. Once u start mingling, its only helps in building better understanding. Now only a normal day u can find gals n boys freely hanging out, sleeveless is a very normal outfit, in fact the gals are much more confident to go out in skirts. If somebody wears sleeveless for the first time it creates hype, but slowly it gets normal n people stop minding it.
Its always a good approach to cure the cause rather than run away from it. Identify the problems properly before passing ur judgment based on the century old prejudices.
The article is disgusting not only coz it makes all the women feel 'cursed by birth' but also its very unfair to all those men whom she demonizes to every extent possible, blames them to be 'born as such' and advices the girls not to 'add fuel to the (already) burning fire'. Sure there are a lot of problems that a woman has to face but not every man is bad and let us not alienate those unbiased people by deliberately passing such statements.
Now this reminds me a very important lesson in my life. Every person is responsible for his own fate. People pls stop blaming men for women's pathetic condition. Lets remind ourselves that still exists a majority of woman (like our dear author) who call themselves 'feminist' and still endorse the ideology of woman as sex object. The solution is not to cover urself at all the possible places, and to maintain distance from every man, but to change the image of a woman. Before talking about our rights and freedom, let us be convinced of our images in our own minds. Once we are sure that 'yes, we deserve respect' can only we command it. Not calling urself a feminist and not demanding special privileges can be the best thing u can do. The word privilege has an inherent bias in it. Avoid it.
Alienation between the sexes doesnt protect u, instead makes u more vulnerable. I remember the time when I joined IT BHU. During the ragging sessions we had heard so many horror stories abt IT BHU guys from our dear seniors that we felt they are goin to rape us at any slightest provocation. The word 'sexy' used to be a taboo. Wearing sleeveless was unimaginable. Visiting Limbdi Corner was prohibited for gals. But things have changed so much since then. Not only did we discover that the guys are not at all bad, but possibly they r the best companions we can get. The alienation only helps in building distrust. Once u start mingling, its only helps in building better understanding. Now only a normal day u can find gals n boys freely hanging out, sleeveless is a very normal outfit, in fact the gals are much more confident to go out in skirts. If somebody wears sleeveless for the first time it creates hype, but slowly it gets normal n people stop minding it.
Its always a good approach to cure the cause rather than run away from it. Identify the problems properly before passing ur judgment based on the century old prejudices.
...posted by Ruchika Agrawal | 1:50 AM
5 Comments:
wonderful words by a wonderful lady.I still remember the time when i joined ITBHU .FIrst girls were rare and then they were seen rarely.Only after coming of these ladies (present 4yr batch)that we started interecting with them .Earlier whenever we saw someone with somebody it created a halla.But they made the environment frindly in terms of gals n boyz relationship.It's in women's hand to make herself respectable and disresapactable.
well said... my two sents... it always matter which group of people are you encounter in your surroundings and which way were they raised... it was possible for you to change the environment in IT-BHU but it may not be that easy at other place...
fully agreed with your point 'alienation between sexes doesn't protect u, instead it makes u more vunerable'... people go for the thing that they don't have... creating a concrete wall or sketching a line b/w men and women is definitely not a solution rather it increases the differences between two of them and thereby decreasing the possibility of them to know each other.
anyways... keep blogging ... good work
firstly.. the new look is better than the previos one.
2ndly well said.
keep writing.
ps: can i link u up at my blog?
"Sure there are a lot of problems that a woman has to face but not every man is bad and let us not alienate those unbiased people by deliberately passing such statements."
... not every guy is gud n not every gal is gud ... but the worst part is that u can never come to know about who is gud n who is bad ... the bad ones usually r the winners ...
my 2 paise
I don't think either you or the author of that article gets the problem. Let me be obnoxiously presumptuous and proffer what I feel is what you're missing:
Men are pigs.. ok..
just accept it your head, and your life will be a whole lot easier,
we're sex-obsessed, licentious maniacs who for long periods of their lives are on a hormonal high
we're sad and pathetic souls who, even when involved in a "seemingly" interesting (maybe even profound) conversation with a woman can only think about whether or not their going to get some
Saying all that, however, is just describing the state of a system. It says nothing about "why?" or "what next"
Answer to the "why" is not as simple as the author of that article offers, namely, genetic.
To look at it in a purely biological sense, men and women are both pre-programmed to seek partners and procreate/recreate (however way you want to look at it).
The problem is your system (and by system I mean the sociatal structure deciding the mores) puts them is an extremely sex deprived enviroment. While that works out fine for women, who have been brainwashed from birth into believing the very notion of sex for recreational use is amoral and debauched, it puts men in an extremly psychologically confusing scenario (also informally known as the "Why the hell am I a 25 yr old virgin, am I going to get some or not?" syndrome)
Now here come the tricky part, "what next". Well I would suggest that as long as you're a woman in a engineering college in India, don't expect men to actually give up imagining you naked when you're talking to them and actually listen to what you're saying. It just not going to happen, not soon enough anyway.
Try instead to realize that there's an entire galaxy of systems out there. If you don't like the way your cell phone works, the smarter thing to do is to get a new one rather than trying to open it up and rectify the problem. A whole lot of junk is going to fall out and you won't accomplish anything other than wasting your own time.
Audacious words I know.. but definitely makes for a good reading wouldn't you say?
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