Weakening of weaker sex

The weakening of weaker sex

“How many siblings do you have, child?”

“We are two sisters.”

“And where does your brother study?”

“But I do not have a brother, we are two sisters.”

The flabbergasted expression of the questioner was becoming all too common already. Though a child then, I had started getting a feeling that something was wrong in our family. Oh yes, I did not have a brother! I had often heard certain concerned “aunties” questioning my parents about the lack of son. These overheard remarks and sympathetic looks fueled my life long quest to understand the strange fascination of Indians with “sons”.

So why are sons so important? Through all my years of careful observation and personal experiences, I gathered this – sons are more important than daughters because men are more important than women, in Indian society at least. While all the highly liberated, enlightened individuals touting the progressive drive of India Inc will probably consider this topic outdated, a quick round of questioning of the general Indian population just might defuse the myth. Discrimination against women is a living, breathing problem in India. We can all either become ostriches and bury our heads in the sand or stand up and notice this alarming trend.

The 2001 census showed a horrifying reality – there were only 927 girls for every 1000 boys in India. This ratio, coupled with the fact that the number of girls per thousand boys has actually reduced from 945 in 1991 to the current number in the latest census, shows a disturbing trend. Is India throwing away most of its girl child? Why is there an actual worsening of sex ratio in the age of women's emancipation? The highly confused society of ours is making sure that most of our female children die a painful death before, immediately after or sometimes even years after their birth. While our religious sentiments make us treat women as clay goddesses, our cultural beliefs encourage us to treat them as second class citizens.

Will there be no end to this shameful hypocrisy?

From the spine tingling incident of mass molestation of two women in public on New Year's in Mumbai to the recent killing of a 16 year old British teenager in Goa, our country is becoming increasingly unsafe for women. If a few of the brave ones try to protest, they are considered immodest and over smart and ostracized by the prudish society. Case in point: the incidence of the battered woman in Surat who had to strip down to her underclothes to attract attention to her plight. As long as a woman keeps her ideas to herself and follows the decisions of the male of the house, all is well. But the moment she steps out of the “lakshman rekha”, she becomes a social pariah. Forcible stripping and public sexual humiliations of women are still too common in this country that claims to be on an upward drive.

Strange it is that even our so called infallible ancient culture shows a doubtful Lord Ram asking his trusting wife Sita to go through fire just to prove her devotion. With such background to begin with, is it any wonder that women think it to be their moral obligation to prove their femininity and honor through innumerable sacrifices and sufferings?

There are many dimensions to this problem of discrimination. One is the constant and real fear of parents that their daughters might get molested, raped or kidnapped, all of which keep happening at frightening rates in India. Then there is the additional tension about the harassment by in-laws or abuse by spouse. And finally there is the belief that daughters will be incapable of taking care of parents after marriage. All these worries encourage even the most informed parent to conclude that it is much wiser to have a male progeny.

To help them in their decision, the clinics which offer illegal sex determination advertise with strikingly novel bylines like “spend 600 bucks now and save 50,000 later” referring obviously to the dowry that a girl's parents must give at the time of marriage.

The methods adopted by several families to get rid of their daughters are shocking to say the least. It is not that the government does not realize this. The problem is that in spite of numerous policies there has been no marked improvement in the attitude of the public. It does not matter that girls today are walking hand in hand with boys in every field imaginable. Most people still think in terms of dowry and additional responsibilities that a girl child demands.

Surprisingly, even today the groom's side considers it their right to demand dowry (often euphemized as gifts because of the strict ban) from the bride's family. What is worse is that the bride's parents bow in to the demand even though they know better. The normal reason given for this is “societal pressure”. But who makes this distinctly anti-female society? We do. So shouldn't we stand up against the strange rules and regulations that bind women to invisible chains, suffocating their spirits and minds?

Why should women observe purdah? Why must a man decide whether a woman be allowed to work or stay at home? Why does a bride's family have to become slavish to every demand of the groom's family? Why must the female members of the family eat after male? Why should women fear backlash from society after being molested?

Most women have long since learned to live with groping and other forms of abuse because they do not know what else to do. Since standing up for rights, especially in economically weaker sections of the country, could mean almost unanimous disapproval from the crowd, women end up suppressing their voice. One theory even suggests that the increasing incidents of sexual harassment of women in India are taking place because of the abysmal lack of women; as if that gives men more freedom to grab the next available female.

It cannot be denied that we have failed to recognize the importance of women in our society. If they are home makers, we conclude that since they are not bread earners, they are pretty much useless anyway. If they actually start working, their jobs are considered immaterial, a sort of pastime and not a necessity. They may be house maids, field workers, daily wagers and also caretakers of their children and house, but they still get slapped around, often literally. The conclusion- no matter what a woman does, she is considered a burden and liability.

Jawaharlal Nehru said “You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women”, and going by that standard our country can still be called backward and primitive. So let’s tone down the celebrations of our self declared progress; we still have a long way to go before becoming truly incredible.