Of Chromosomes XX & XY

Welcome to earth, where half the population of dominant species still cannot trust the other half.

“Women should not work”

“Women should stay at home”

“Women should not wear revealing clothes” 

These are the suggestions you get in Google when you put the words “women should” into the search box. This, alone, should be enough to give the reader an idea of the magnitude of the problem facing us today. A problem that has persisted for centuries.

Women.

“Wait! What are you saying? How are we women the problem? It’s the men who rape! It’s the men who ogle at women as if it was their birthright! It’s the men who still get paid more at jobs even when we women work harder than them! It’s the men who cannot be trusted!”

All right then. Let’s do the same google search for men too.

“Men should not rape”

“Men should control themselves”

“Men should not be jealous”

Here’s the reiterated problem: men.

“How are we a problem? It’s the women that wear attractive clothes to invite stares! It’s the women who use beauty to their advantage! It’s the women who say men are pigs and then send us open letters asking us to do something! It’s the women that cannot be trusted!”

BOTH OF THESE VIEWS ARE WRONG. THEY ARE OVERLY SIMPLISTIC, INSINUATE AN ENTIRE GENDER WHILE TALKING ABOUT A SELECT FEW, AND REFUSE TO TALK ABOUT THE REAL PROBLEM: OUR MINDSET. 

 

Let’s talk about women first. India is a country which has seen the rise of many great women souls like Rani Lakshmi Bai, Madam Hazrat Mahal, Anni Beasant and many more. But, in the same nation there have been at least 250 crimes a day against women. From birth itself, women are victims of female feticide, female infanticide, eve teasing, sexual harassments, sexual assaults, and a number of other crimes. It is almost as if being born a woman is a crime, in our country.

Not just India, but all over the world there have been many incidents reported against women. So what is the solution? That we give rapists the death penalty? That we raise our women to be afraid of every man, even the ones in their own family? Or do we do the opposite, pretend that rape is not a real problem and get the victim married to the rapist, as still happens in rural India?

Both these approaches result in the oppression of a gender. 

Now let’s talk about men. “Boys don’t cry” is a doctrine that is hardwired inside every boy from a very young age. Men are brought up to deny their emotions; to consider themselves to be better than women at everything they do. “Saale ladki hai kya?” “Kya yaar, ladki se haar gaya?” “Ladkiyon jaisi baatein mat kar” Do you see a pattern here?

To be outsmarted by a woman is said to be the most shameful thing in the world, an affront to the male ego. As if only men can have egos. As if a woman who excels at something, is an insult to a man. As if women are supposed to be purely sexual beings; divided into your mothers and sisters, and creatures to serve the whims of men. Being a man, I cannot tell you how much this infuriates me.

IT’S OUR MINDSET THAT IS THE REAL PROBLEM HERE. 

And it is alienating our genders more and more, every single day. In a country we call the motherland, from the time we come out of the wombs of our mothers it is the women that are treated as to be fundamentally lesser than men. Think this cannot be possibly true? Even the term ‘woman’ comes from ‘wife of man’.

It is up to us, the new generation, to fix this now. To all the men reading this, I say: stop dehumanizing women. I can hear you guys denying it; but we all have been a part of this, at some point of our lives. And to the women I say: you are equal to the men, in each and every respect. Do not settle for anything less. Without you, the human race would be extinct.

We are living in a society where a 3-month old baby and a 68-year old grandma are both the victims of depraved men who see women only as objects. It is high time that both the genders worked together to change this.