How about Women?

Photo: Jerri Dias: Women at the Rio World Youth Day

Our society today has progressed leaps and bounds. Every human person has contributed towards this progression and others have benefitted from this organic progression. It is an organic progression because of its originality and selfless continuity. Human society wanted to see light at the end of the tunnel, may be we have seen the light. My optimistic spirit speaks about the hope that was oblique has transformed into a clear hope in our world today. Men and women of our society have worked hard for this progression of human race. If you observed, I have put Men in block letters and women in lowercase, this is no typo but a deliberate attempt from me to show that our society has still apprehensive about women being in the lime light. Are women really free in our society today? Of course, every woman who enjoys privilege of being treated, as equal would surely negate my statement that women are free. It is because of their positive experience in life in society. Let me nail my argument; is our society inherently patriarchal?

I have known a few women, who have been victims of domestic violence from their male partners. Some of the women are abused and beaten almost on a regular basis. What if your male partner draws gun at you in anger in the middle of the night and of course apologises saying that he did not mean it? Will you still continue to live with that kind of partner? What if your male partner cuffs you on your eyes with anger or drunkenness? Will you still continue living with him? Apparently, some women continue to live with their violent partners despite the atrocities committed against them. I wondered why it is so. Some of them do accept that they are servants and inferior to their male partners, hence a virtue of submission is the key to their relationship. Some of the women stay on in that relationship because of the societal, cultural and religious affiliations, in other words taboo of women being considered evil if they were to leave their partners. So they continue to live in the abusive relationship. God bless them.

I was watching an interview on Al Jazeera’s head to head at Oxford Union with the American-Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy who shot to fame after she published an article in controversial magazine saying that Arab men hate women. She argues that Arab world is inherently patriarchal and men suppress women in all the possible ways. Of course she speaks from her own experience of being supressed in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. She opined that women cannot walk freely in the streets at night, women cannot drive, women have to wear burqa etc. She feels strongly that women have to treated equally and they should be given all the rights that men enjoy; which is correct. This reminds me of a movie I watched not long ago called “made in Dagenham’, which showed the struggle of women to pay-rise in the gigantic Ford car company. That was real struggle of women to show that they did equal work as men, in fact more, but paid less then men. That struggle of 1970’s made all the difference for most women all over the world and are entitled to the same pay as men. Cheers to those women who made this possible.

Let me stick my thought to one example of women not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia; can anyone give me a solid reason as to why women cannot drive? When women have made such progress even stepping into the space like Kalpana Chawla, why cannot women drive a little motor engine? I would be happy to be driven by a woman. Now, women not allowed to drive are really a trivial example. What about women being raped in India? I am not arguing the reasons for it, but as far as I am concerned, one of the main causes of rape is male domination and women considering themselves as muscle-less. I try to reinforce women saying they are equally strong as men, may be stronger at times; thence why not strike back in defence of your own life. If women sit lay back and wait for the male dominated justice system, women will reach nowhere, rather they will be further victimized.

My writings frequently touch upon one single issue of equality, i.e. gender equality. This can be done with the help of men of our society who care for the women. We as responsible men have a significant role to play in empowering our women. We have to grow complementarily as man and woman; this applies not only for spouses but also for every woman of our society. Woman has an important function in our human race, it is they who help our human race to grow and multiply. Of course not to deny that most women are gentle and lovable human beings on earth as someone said, God could not be everywhere thence he created mothers. Let us help these women who are suppressed by so called male chauvinists and rescue them to give them human dignity that helps us grow as one human family.