Abuse
I read, in quick succession, a couple of posts on domestic violence. It got me thinking. Why do men beat up their wives? Anger? Passion? Inability to keep one’s sanity? Drinking? Most of the time, we assume that men who drink, who are unfaithful, who are inept, are the ones beating up their partners. But sadly, I find that none of these need to lead to violence. Yes, drinking makes it easier for a man to justify his behaviour. But, the actual reason lies elsewhere. It’s about control. It’s about domination.
When I was in college, I studied Women’s Studies. I studied rape from an academic perspective. The first thing I discovered was that rape was not a sex crime. It was not for sex that women were raped. They were raped because the men who raped them had a point to make. Of being stronger, more powerful, better. Domestic violence falls under the same category. Only, it’s more difficult to detect, identify or control. For one simple reason. The man who beats is the one who is supposed to protect. And more than anything else, it is not the wife’s responsibility to ensure she is not hit. Why do people not understand that the abuser is at fault? The comment quoted by Ra is a case in point. Women are attracted to violence? What the hell? Why are women always held responsible for what happens to them? It hurts when girls are told that they were teased on the road by some loafer because they must have dressed provocatively. It angers me that women are told to wear only salwar kameez because boys will be distracted by me if they turn up in jeans. It irritates me and causes me to rebel when I see some vague engineering college in Chennai enforce gender-based segregation because they don’t want their boys getting spoilt by under-dressed female classmates. Why can’t the world see sense?
As a woman, it’s my business how I want to dress. A woman’s dress, her job or her behaviour is not an excuse to beat her. I fell the need to tell all those women out there who are in abusive relationships one thing. If a man hits you, he can’t love you. A man who loves you will get upset when he sees you hurt. A man who loves you will risk his life to ensure you are not in pain. A man who loves you will get angry with you for crying over a friend’s death because he can’t see you cry. A man who really loves you will suggest you don’t do things that make you unhappy. So, if you have a partner who is abusive, he probably doesn’t love you. Stop deluding yourself. Walk out when you are still alive. Please.
On hot chapathis
Read this post by IHM. I love the rebuttals. I love the comments even more. As she says, it’s not about the chapathis. It doesn’t matter whether the chapathis are eaten hot or cold. I know many people (both men and women) who can’t eat their food hot. That is not the issue. The issue here is the commentator in question assuming that the woman must always eat last. I don’t get it. If you are hungry you eat.
Dinner time is bonding time. I come back around 8 30 every night. My parents and I have dinner together. They choose to wait. After I get married, maybe I too will choose to wait. Maybe I will be too tired to wait and leave food in a hot pack and go to bed after having had my dinner. Maybe I won’t cook at all. The problem here is men assuming that women want to do all this. Sometimes, even other women (mothers in-law) assume that it’s a wifely duty to wait until the husband has eaten. They call it tradition. I call it chauvinism. I hate to eat alone. It makes me cry. It makes me lonely. So, I wait. For dad, mom or husband. But, that’s just me. Why do men assume the wife will wait. Why do they expect her to stay up until midnight without eating. It’s inherently unjust. Don’t they realise that? There is no harmony possible if one person is forced to do all the work, and wait until the rest of the family has eaten. Agreed. Someone must cook. But, can’t you at least show empathy? If not love. Could you at least ask why she hasn’t eaten. Could you sit with her while she eats? Could you help her clean up? Could you at least leave her alone to eat in peace without demanding paan and dessert immediately? Is that too much to ask? Tell me please.
On that note, Nimmy has a post on How to be a better wife. I would rather not go into the details of all that I feel. But, let me express my indignation at being told to be a domestic Goddess and appreciate my husband’s…er…manly things. And also at being told to honour his right to rule over me and my kids. Rule? Did you say rule? I am sorry. I am not a kingdom, or a piece of cattle. Nobody has the right to rule over me. I am a living and thinking individual. I wish to bring up my children as thinking individuals too. Not as a cattle herd. This reminds me of Subramanya Bharathi’s words,
“Solladee Sivasakthi, ennai sudarmigum arivudan padaitthu vittaai.”
God has given me the brains. I will use it. I am sorry if it too inconvenient for the rest of our sexist friends.
Of secularism and terrorism
I knew editorial standards in journalism were pathetic, but I frankly did not expect a newspaper like The Hindu to publish total bullshit like this. This article is offensive at so many levels that I don’t know where to start.
First, the author seems to confuse secularism with impartiality. Secular means non-religious. Terrorism is never about religion, it is simply about power. Religion is only a means to an end. She becomes incoherent when she cites Mahatma Gandhi and the Kanchi seer in a completely irrelevant situation. She then becomes outright offensive in this sentence.
A few Hindu militants emerged here and there only after the aliens who arrived in India provoked them or forcibly converted them. But their number has been too insignificant as otherwise India won’t be the multi-religious country that it is.
She basically implies that all Hindu fundamentalism is caused by the presence of aliens, supposedly Muslim invaders and European colonisers. Such a wild accusation, especially published in a respected paper like the Hindu is condemnable. That’s not all. As if wanting to prove that she understands zilch about either politics of foreign affairs, she asks why Mr. Vajpayee chose to inform Mr. Bush of the parliament attack. She wants to know who Mr. Bush is to decide the fate of our country. It just makes me wish she would shut up.
Let’s get one thing right. Secularism or religion has nothing to do with terrorism. Terror must be dealt with firmly, irrespective of the religion of the perpetrator. Equating one with the other is criminal. The task at hand is not to shun or criticise one community. It is to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice. Their religion must be of no consequence to us. Nor the religion of the arrested Sadhvi or anyone else who perpetrates terror attacks. When will we understand that talking secularism in such troubled times only makes things worse. The question now is only of whether we can meet the challenge posed by terrorism.Happy new year!!
Yay! I finally did what I was planning to for over a month. I have migrated to WordPress. I hope Nita, Krishna and everyone else who wanted me to come over are happy. The blog URL remains the same and so does the feed address. So, keep reading. Be back soon with more. And yes, here’s wishing you a very very happy new year. 🙂