Last & Least

Tomorrow, March 8, is the International Women's Day. This episode is intended to be an acknowledgement of the contribution of the womenfolk to the existence and development of human civilisation.

Enemies of Women

Dr Binoy Barman

Traditionally, the life of women is seen as full of sorrows and difficulties. Considered as weaker sex and inferior to male counterparts, they are given lesser status and importance in almost all fields of work. They are made to face multifarious discriminations in society in one form or another. Their only fault is that they are women, characteristically possessing what is called Shakespearean 'frailty'. For feminine body and spirit, they are dishonoured and downtrodden. They are compared with flowers but put at the risk of being deflowered. They do not even get sympathy of God. Tear only seems to care their life.

Women can sit down and meditate, with political and philosophical wisdom, on who are responsible for their misfortune. What agents are out there to jeopardise their existence and freedom? Why are they thrust and held at the bottom of the ladder? Why do the cruel claws fall on them and slash them apart. They can attempt to identify the 'enemies' who make their life really difficult. In their mission, they should be able to find out some enemies easily while some might be too disguised to be spotted with bare eyes. They can combat some enemies, effectively, with individual and group efforts, while others are beyond their reach, so to say. In any case, they should be resolute to ward off all the odds in front of them.

The first enemy that women might identify is, obviously, 'men' with whom they tie the knot to produce offspring. Men try to dominate them in every possible way in and out of family. Men abuse women physically and mentally, taking advantage of their infirm body traits. As men are stronger than women, the former show the audacity to kidnap, rape and kill the latter. Men try to defeat women in the showdown of 'sexual politics'. Men try to marry them forcibly and burn their faces with acid if they refuse. Men lure women and make them bear the brunt of physical union. Women become the victims of men's unlimited lust. As women struggle for equal rights, men oppose them with the vehemence of all feudal mentality. It feels uncomfortable for men that women would gain commands comparable to them. So-called progressive gentlemen even resort to 'conservatism' when they find their wives are going out of control. Shame!

Social institution is the second big enemy of women. The world societies still pamper male chauvinism to put womenfolk in disgrace. Through marriage, an age-old social custom, women are bonded to 'virtual slavery'. They are transformed into 'property of men'. Women, in most of the cases, are required to cook foods for their husbands and other family members. They would clean dishes and wash clothes staying at home. Other times they would groom only to amuse their husbands. As mothers, they will raise children while fathers will remain busy in 'economic' activities (or in promiscuity?). In many societies there are family barriers to women's working outside. They will be prevented from talking to and mixing with the adults of opposite sex, unlike the male members. Their liberty is grossly curtailed in the household of parents as well as in-laws. In some societies the birth of a female baby is unwelcome and so it is brought up in privation and deprivation. They are not properly educated, up to the level of economic independence. Inequalities and injustices that women have to encounter in practical life are largely the outcome of social attitude biased towards men. Even in courtship accidents and unwanted pregnancy, it is the women, not the men, who face the public anathema and pick up social stigma.

Religion is the next deadly enemy of women. Many dictums of religions go against the interest of them. Religions deprive them materially as well as spiritually. Almost all religions give blank cheque in men's hand to treat their better-half ('worse-half' without euphemism) as they please. Many religions have created heaven for women under the feet of their husbands. Some religions discourage women to perform certain rituals while some deny their right to parental wealth. Religions determine dress code for them, they like it or not. The voice of women indeed is hardly heard in the holy books. Women's prospects here and hereafter as per religious provisions are very bleak -- their lives are wasted. All rewards seem to be preserved for men. God has created women, as it appears, just for the entertainment of men. Virtuous men, as God wishes, can enjoy the bliss of women's association on earth and in heaven. Religion is full of complex, with unfair treatment to women. The greater complexity is that social attitude to women is greatly influenced by religious rules, favouring men.

The deadliest enemy of women is probably nature itself in which everything exists. Nature has shaped up female body in a 'different' way than that of their male counterparts. This difference in body shape makes them vulnerable, limiting their movement to a great extent. Nature has vested women with the responsibility of conceiving and carrying foetus in their womb. This is the root cause of all gender discriminations. Women bear babies, risking their life, and feed them breasts, which men do not and, indeed, cannot. A sharp contrast, whatsoever! It is a natural disparity -- fatal but unavoidable. If nature, the omnipotent entity, is equated with 'God', then 'He' is responsible for this. 'God', being 'male', (Notice we use the pronoun 'He' instead of 'She' for God) has sanctioned for women the punishment of 'womanhood'. He is the supreme discriminator, on this count. He created the 'prohibited apple' for Eve so that she can commit the original sin by eating it!

What are the ways of emancipation for women, then? Yes, in the present state of affairs, they must continue to struggle for eradicating social discriminations under a forceful feminist campaign. They may attempt to topple the rotten religious systems which, in total humiliation, subordinate them to men (I wonder if they could create any female-biased religions to counteract the existing 'manly' ones). For combating natural oddities, they should resort to the development in medical science, which might rid them of the one-sided responsibility of bearing child. Genetic engineering is likely to provide solution to the problem, creating new forms of men and women, with an alteration of discriminatory characteristics. A process may be developed whereby zygote would be safely nourished in an artificial placenta out of mother's uterus. Or, a way may be devised which would enable men to carry baby inside their body. Who knows, one day clone technology may render sexual reproduction redundant, freeing women from their 'natural duty'. Until then, women have no choice but to accept the 'unfortunate fate'.

The tragedy is that although women play more significant role than men in keeping cycles of human life rolling down through generations, they are deprived and neglected. They are hated when they should be respected. If the womenfolk of the world strike to stop hosting semen in their reproductive organs, the humankind as a species will be destroyed (Some say, women would never be united themselves for their welfare as they are their own enemy -- I do not subscribe to that theory). Women are more important than men for human existence as a whole. They deserve a better place, more elevated status, in their own right.

(The writer is Assistant Professor and Head, Department of English, Daffodil International University.)