I have been a supporter of gender equality since long. To gather informations on gender equality, I had gone through loads of papers and write ups on first, second and third wave feminisms. At first, I thought that our grandmas who ruled the households were the brave examples of feminism; my illusion got a crack when I got to hear so many grand ma’s painful stories. Then it was the turn of the 2nd generation women, i.e our mothers. They are the new brigade of educated working women who were probably greatly influenced by Indira Gandhi and Queen Elizabeth II. They established WO MEN among the MEN and made common individuals to believe that there would be women around them even in the work places too. Nonetheless, this strong influence gave birth to a revolutionary ideology of prohibition of sexual harassment of women in the work place and it materialized in a path making judgment of Vishakha vs State of Rajasthan India
But do some women really support gender equality?
Probably no. Couple of months ago I came across an ‘agony aunty –page’ in a famous women’s magazine. My eyes got stuck to a painstaking story of a man. He comes from a brilliant family with two sisters, both of whom are successful professionals. He himself is a successful young man and aims to achieve many things that a normal young man dreams of. But he is barred. His family demands that he has to pay for being a brother. He is not allowed to buy anything he wishes because he needs to save the money for his sisters, he cant visit places as he wishes, because that will be extravaganza unless the sisters are married. Ohh…wait.. didn’t he also say that he needs to remain a ‘big brother’ even when the girls get married ! The man cries…then what for they (girls) are earning? Why were they sent to the same schools as he was by his parents ?
Well, this is but common phenomena now in average Indian families. The young men suffer from identity crisis mostly due to their mothers and sisters who prefer to remain under the big umbrella called ‘male chauvinism’. But don’t mistake……… this can be a camouflaged umbrella too which is probably made by the women folk themselves. For I have seen many educated employed women DEMANDING from their brothers, the parents of these women being the prime supports for such confused state of affairs. Did you note that I am using the word “demanding”? it is because I want to differentiate it from the dowry related pressure from the in-laws. True, very sadly the later form of demand still eclipse the former form of demand. But coming back to my point, I feel some women (who are obviously meager in number than the real sufferers in the hands of social problems like dowry) really defy the positive side of gender equality for women. Eventually they may turn into torturous sisters-in law for their brothers’ wives, greedy mothers- in- law for their sons’ wives and may create wrong examples for their daughters too, thereby making the cycle bigger.
I remember Kaun Banega Krorepati host Amitabh Bachchan’s polite yet sincere warning to every contestant who looks forward to answer the 11th question that will fetch Rs 50 lakhs….. “Play safe and don’t be greedy… you may loose every thing you won”. Such women may really loose the status of women of modern thoughts. I strongly feel that every educated woman plays a role of ambassador of ‘gender equality for women’. Unless women are promising to themselves that they will be happy with their own independent standards of living, thoughts and ideologies, they may not set an example to those really suffering women…….. not to forget the famous proverb…... women are the best friends of women … they are the best enemies of women too.
