Ironies of gender stereotypes

You cook and its an art
We slog it out
meal after meal and
never secure a place
in culinary history

you speak socialism
and equality
you are such a
sensitive intellectual
We speak about rights
and become the
bloody feminists

You are a charmer
a ladies man
and we are
just shameless

your clothes
at best define your
social status or profession
my clothes
can get me raped

So lets talk equality
in some other
time
in some other
equal space.


 

A VEILED DOLL

On a recent trip to Rajasthan, through pockets of Haryana and then in two major Rajasthan towns I was suddenly surrounded by a lot of veiled women.The faces,the personalities all shrouded only a shadow visible.A human being whose face is supposed to be covered most of the time in the name of shame and family honour will never experience any kind of self-worth.

This reminded me of a post on Facebook a few days ago

For reasons religious or otherwise girls as young as three on the streets,face and head fully covered in the sweltering Thar heat on a crowded street did not look one bit comfortable or normal,constantly adjusting  rather struggling with their ghoonghats every now and then.

The big debates on TV channels and in literary circles about WOMEN EMPOWERMENT seem so hypocritical and farcical when you realise that  here probably nothing has changed for hundreds of years and and it doesn't look like changing for better some time soon.

How do you then blame the women beggars seeking alms wishing men success in business and work, wealth and health ( saheb tumhare kaam mein barqat ho,allah tumhe sehat bakhshe,tarraki de)
and wishing women the usual May you bear a son ! (Khuda tumahri jholi mein laal deve)

The truth is that for these women and hundreds of other women like them and their daughters there is no life,no future other than being the mother of a son.

A few decades ago a lot of daughters and daughter-in-laws like my mother only had to cover their heads and not faces and they considered it to be a huge favor done to them by their in-laws.They never even questioned why they needed to be BEHIND A VEIL.

During Navaratras and Kanjak my father never allowed me to got to any home to be worshiped as a little Devi?( This being a common ritual all over North India),and I resented it then because all other little girls got some goodies and seemed to enjoy the attention.

When I grew up I understood his logic of not allowing the same society and people to worship me for a day which would pity my parents the rest of the year for not having a son and felt sorry for me for not having a brother.Today the rule remains the same for my daughter and I hope one day she would understand my reason.

Me and a lot of my friends have had short hair for many years,at the risk of being called PAR KATI (refer to Sharad Yadav,a prominent politician inside the parliament during the debate over women reservation bill.)

We have never covered our heads or faces in our growing up years or after marriage and have preferred to carry our notions of decency and respect only in our minds and not in direct proportion to the length of our ghoonghats.

Most of us also don't feel the need to carry the other symbols of an Indian woman's married status-bichiya,sindoor,bindi,manglasutra, much to the ire of  the rigid minded traditionalists,and to add to that our husbands are not so-and-so's papa or sunte ho ji. We liberally use the beautiful first names their parents gave them.

We do not give up our maiden names leading to more raised eyebrows,because we believe that being married we are not dead or reborn,hence we do not need to dilute our identity just expand it to include our spouses.

Oh God ! so much of revolt to handle in homes!

But I believe all of these are such small but huge changes that need to happen in homes all over,in streets where we force our women to be veiled and be marginalized but do not sensitize our men to be respectful and tolerant of a woman as an equal human No more than them,no devi and no less than them as well.In religious places or ceremonies in homes where men are supposed to participate and women just watch and slog in the kitchens.

This post is part of a contest CELEBRATING GIRLS,CELEBRATING WOMEN

निर्वासन

मूक आज्ञापालन के विनिमय में
परिवार का नाम क्या उधार देते हो

सदियों से गड़े, ज़ंग लगे
मान्यताओं के खूटों से
मेरे सारे सपने
बाँध रखते हो

मेरी कुर्ती,ओढ़नी
के नाज़ुक धागे
कैसे चटखा देते होंगे
हे मर्यादा-पुरुषोतम
तुम्हारा चरित्र
क्या इसी प्रशन से डरकर
मुझे अस्थायी पहचान देते हो ?

अजीब है यह निर्वासन मेरा
घरों,गली-मोहल्लों ,गावों -शहरों
में तुम जगह नहीं देना चाहते
इसीलिए सती ,देवी या डायन
का बंधन बाँध देते हो

This was first published in The Browsing Corner .

आंदोलन

आंदोलन ही तो है
अपनी अजन्मी बच्ची
के जीने के  अधिकार के लिए
सर्वस्व का दांव
पर लगा देना

आंदोलन ही है
उस बच्ची का
घर की दहलीज़ लांघ
स्कूल की चौखट चूमना
माँ के साथ
चक्की की तरह
पिस-पिस कर भी
किताबों का दामन
थामे रखना

आन्दोलन है
अपनी इच्छा से
मोल-भाव,देन -लेन रहित
अपना जीवन -साथी चुनना
दकियानूसी रिवाजों की
मैली चादर को
अपनी आत्मा के
लहुलुहान होने पर भी
उतार फेंकना


आन्दोलन है
काम करने की
स्वतंत्रता के साथ-साथ
अपनी पूंजी आप बटोरना
अपने छोटे-बड़े सब
तरह के अपमानों का
विरोध करना

आन्दोलन है
अपने बेटे,भाई,पति और पिता को
अपने जीवन के हरेक पुरुष को
औरत की गाली देने का
अधिकार न देना

आन्दोलन है
अपनी आवाज़ को
हर औरत की आवाज़ बना देना

सड़कों पर,झंडों और नारों में
तो है बस एक आन्दोलन
चूल्हे-चौकों में
घरों में ,मनों में
आत्माओं में
अविरत हैं
असंख्य अल्प आंदोलन

मशालें तो दिखाई देती हैं
दूर से भी पर
रौशनी लायेंगे शायद
ऐसे ही छोटी-छोटी
ज्वालाओं के आंदोलन !!

Celebrating Girls, Celebrating Women Contest

RADHA

This is a Winning entry here at Women's Web 

Photo courtesy: Birbal Sharma

Another cold winter dawn will break a few hours later in her tiny hilly village.She does not even remember since when she learned to wake up at this hour,quickly grab her mangled woolen scarf and head for the barn.The young ones of the cows and the sheep are used to an early breakfast and she loves to see them snuggle next to their mothers as soon as she unfastened them from their stakes.Every morning she loses some precious time here just gazing at this divine scene.

Just before sunrise the kitchen chimney is smoking,she quickly guts the watery tea in her tin cup and heads for the stream.Thankfully the cooking is taken care of.In summers the water bit is fun,while filling her two pots she often slips her feet in the fresh cool gurgling bubbles of the stream and  also splashes some on her face,but in this season the water is so cold that even the pots are difficult to handle after a while.

On her way back she can see the boys heading for the primary school,carefree and naughty and the girls taking the cattle out or fetching firewood.Her mind wanders to the tangy chutney she had saved from her share of previous night's dinner,oh how she would love to have it with a crisp roti and another cup of tea !

But brunch as usual is hurried, the utensils have to be washed for the next meal before the men return from the fields and the cattle has to be attended to.

Long ago when she had gone to school for a few days she had learned about cities where there are cars and buses,taps for hot and cold water and no cattle or fields to attend to.Their teacher had told them that in cities girls also drive cars,go to schools and work in offices and factories.She had only seen one city lady-Indira Gandhi,whose picture hung on the wall of the headmaster's office.

In the evening as she brings back the grazing cattle home every day and carries the stock of firewood for the night she halts in front of the door of the village headman, some folk song is playing on his TV.She begins to hum along and tap her feet,but just after a few seconds the jagged edges of the rope holding the wood begin to cut into her shoulders and she moves on.

Dinner is the usual ,a small helping of buttermilk and rice.The utensils have to be done again,before she finally gets to lie next to her mother in their shared blanket.

Another winter day is over in Radha's life and she closes her eyes to dream about a world where 8 years old girls like her,went to schools. She wanted to be there where grandmothers and other elders did not believe that girls are a curse upon their parents like she and her three younger sisters were.She dreamt of a new dress,shoes,enough rice and buttermilk to eat.She often had dreams about going to school,driving a car,reading thick books and dancing on folk songs.She dreamt till it was a couple of hours to dawn and Radha woke up again to begin another day.



No celebration of womanhood,motherhood,equality or freedom is true or justified till we have little girls like Radha working and getting the basic amenities of life only in their dreams.

This post is part of a contest CELEBRATING GIRLS,CELEBRATING WOMEN

HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY

Say it to the female fetuses
you have shoved
down the drain
of your stinking desire
to have a male heir

say it to little girls
you denied food,education
and equality

say it to women
traumatized, brutalized
raped and killed
or silenced to
bear the agony
over and over again

say it to the women
you consider
just objects
lesser than you
in all respects

or best
say it to those women
your foot soldiers helping you
in maintaining status quo

come on Patriarchy
lets celebrate
your victims
whose resilience,even for you
is hard to let slide !

"I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves."  ~Mary Wollstonecraft
WOMEN'S WEB CONTEST

मर्यादा-पुरषोत्तम

खेतों और खलिहानों  में 
छोटे -बड़े कारखानों में 
तुम जितना  ही पिसती है 

घर  में और दफ्तर में 
किस्मत की लकीरों  को 
तुम्हारी तरह ही घिसती है 

माँ का हाथ बटाते 
बचपन के सपने घुल जाते हैं 
मर्यादा का बोझ उठाते 
उसके कंधे झुक जाते हैं 

बेटी,बहेन ,पत्नी या माँ हो 
या फिर हो सहकर्मी सहपाठी 
सारा श्रेय उसके हिस्से का भी 
तुमने सहर्ष स्वीकार किया  

और मर्यादा-पुरषोत्तम होने पर  भी 
परंपरा का पूर्ण दायित्व 
उसको तुमने सौंप दिया ?

भागीदार को भार बता कर 
निरंतर जिसका अपमान किया 
केवल पत्थर की देवी बना कर 
ही जिसका सम्मान किया 

नारी रूपी मेरुदंड 
ही तुम को सशक्त बनाएगा 
नारी-सम्मान करने वाला ही 
मर्यादा-पुरषोत्तम कहलायेगा  !

This is an entry for a contest on INDUSLADIES

THE UNI-DIMENSIONAL WOMEN

I had first encountered the term BECHDEL TEST  as a literature student ,today as I am writing about  WOMEN IN MEDIA AND FILMS I incidentally happened to read about the same on another blog as well, I realize nothing much has changed in more than over a decade.So for starters the test is used to identify gender bias in all kinds of media and any piece has to pass three criteria to pass the test:

(1) It has to have at least two women in it, 

(2) who talk to each other, 

(3) about something besides a man.

Just take out two minutes and put your favorite TV serial or Hollywood/Bollywood movie to this test.There are just a handful which will make the cut.This is not just about various art forms but I am sure a lot of real life would also fail the test.

So let me enumerate some of the ways in which we depict women in MOST of our films and media:

• If she dresses the way she wants (read unconventional) she must be the vamp.Good women( read docile,obedient,chaste) dress up conventionally with a veil on their heads and more importantly their minds.
• Women who choose work or career ( read over-ambitious) are dangerous to the social fabric( read existing power structures of patriarchy) and hence need to be labelled BAD.
• Women are truly happy only when they are loved and cherished( read married or brought up to be only happily married). Divorced,separated,single-women are not the norm.
• Women who speak their mind end up lost( read humiliated,alone or worst still raped or killed).
• Only sons/husbands/fathers can protect,lead,decide.Daughters,wives and mothers do so only when men are not there due to whatever reason.
• All women have a duty to look pretty , be obedient and preserve family values( read be objectified and be SILENT.

This is an entry for this women's day contest on INDUSLADIES.

I CELEBRATE MYSELF ! ( click the title to see the details of the contest )

Write poetry
and be labeled
eccentric

Speak your mind
and be called
too free-spirited

Ask questions
and be
the defiant rebel

Wear a short-dress
or high heels
be scandalous

Decide to work
despite kids and family
be called selfish

Manage your own money
and be called lavish

I am the every woman
and now I don't live
only upto the
stereotypes

Curse or accuse
show no support
despite all odds
I celebrate myself !



http://www.womensweb.in/articles/celebrating-myself/?utm_source=ww_ad&utm_medium=ww_ad&utm_content=ww_ad&utm_campaign=bww_ad

MORALITY( SOME SNAPSHOTS)

In a small town college
she kissed him back
her first love
the next day
the whole college
had an MMS.....

In her village
she stole her
mom's jewellery
to send him- a low caste
to study in a city,
killed, soon she was
a headline.....

In her attempt
to prevent bloodshed
in the family
she never told her father
what uncle did to her,
now she lives
in a mental asylum.....

In a relationship
of mutual trust
she shared her fears,
secrets,with him-
her best friend in office
after a weekend
her character was up
for public assasination.....

In the big city
she opened to him
her heart,her purse
her soul and her flat
next year,he found
someone younger.

In their love marriage
the only issue was
hiding the scars
she would cover,lie
and then one day
the wound was fatal......

In a swank clinic
the doctor told them-
it's a girl,soon he
he found a
butcher-house in
the back lanes
to get rid of the curse.....


What gender is morality?
Male like the patriarchy
that imposes it,
or female ,
like the ones
who are to follow
and propagate it?