The great divide

(Published in BD News Online, Bangladesh, November 19, 2010)


Once upon a very long time ago God created man and, of course, woman. One school of thought maintains that woman – let’s call her Eve, since that would be more convenient and comprehensible – was formed from a bone from the ribcage of the man – Adam, again for more convenience. A Greek myth says that Pandora, the first woman, was a gift given to men by Zeus to punish them for having received fire, stolen from Prometheus. Zeus – oh, wise man! – commanded the creation of the first woman, a ‘beautiful evil’, destined to give birth to descendants who would torment the race of men. That was, perhaps, one of the last instances of men acting with wisdom and foresight. And it did, just to even out the points, give women the power to deal with men and men the possibilities of telling really bad and chauvinistic jokes.

Be that all as it may, the fact of the matter is that in Asia the woman has to live with a strange balance of power. In many parts of India, for instance, like in some clans in Kerala and certain communities in the northeast, the woman reigns supreme in a society that is still matriarchal and matrilineal. In the bustling commercial capital of Mumbai a tiny proportion of the female population fight battles like the glass ceiling and gender equality, while in the rest of the teeming metropolis, there are bigger wars to face, from everyday and startlingly casual sexual abuse to exploitation, poverty, hygiene, health…name it and the woman must arm herself to conquer it. Driving buses through the crowded streets, steering trains along the maze of the commuter network, working on construction sites, directing films, catering lunch services - today there is little that women do not generally aspire to, frequently struggle towards and usually manage to do better than their male counterparts. There is almost always a male bastion to breach, an age-old barrier to clamber over, with sari, high heels, make up and all. In the process, an aggression builds up, slowly evolving into a core of steel and fire, hiding a tiny kernel of softness and sensitivity.

Mythology that stretches its legends across the world have examples a-plenty of a woman’s life not being an easy one. Consider Draupadi, daughter, princess, wife, warrior, heroine of the Mahabharata. She had to deal with not one husband, but five, all because of a thoughtless command from her mother-in-law to her husband – share your prize with your brothers, said Ma-in-law to Arjun, the prince who had shot the arrow that won the hand of the princess. A literal translation of the command into action gave Draupadi five men to be wife to – some interpretations see it as various aspects or face of the same man. Along the way, the poor woman had to deal with poverty, deprivation, manual labour, humiliation and, as the ultimate insult, sexual abuse, where she was stripped in front of a full court of gawking men. But she won, with a little divine intervention, and is now considered a paragon among women.

And there was Sita, wife of Lord Rama, hero of the Ramayana. She went from being a foundling in a field to being a pampered princess and then the wife of a princeling revered as the Ultimate Man. But there was more to Sita than most people who are told the story as children usually think about. She was taken from a safe, happy, luxurious home with promises of being the queen of a kingdom. And within a short time of being married, she found herself living in a forest, surrounded by wild animals and wilder demons, and then was whisked away by an amorous man with an amazing ten heads to his island in the south. One deadly war later, she found herself back with her husband, all ready to resume life as his queen, at the closing of a full circle of adventure. But a tiny voice – a male one, the ancient texts say – demanded proof of Sita’s virtue and the unfortunate lady had to go through trial by fire, at which point she decided she was fed up of men trying to run her life and walked away to a more bucolic existence with her sons.

And somewhere along the way, a different consciousness stirs…

Women like myself, an admittedly privileged lot who do not need to worry about the next meal, a roof overhead or clothes to wear, have seen their mothers and seniors fight the battle and, for the most part, win. Our paths have already been cleared and made ready for our stiletto heels to tick-tock along. We have decided to focus our energies not on waging that ancient war, but using the hard-won territory to make ourselves more comfortable as we fight newer, more relevant battles, whether to find new territories to conquer or mould those we already own to suit our particular situations. Today we see what is traditionally considered ‘male power’ as a sort of convenience for women – go ahead, guys, tote that luggage because it is too heavy for us, we would rather not get calloused palms; go through that door first because anything nasty out there can get you rather than us; sit on that lone free seat in the train, we do not want our nicely laundered clothes to collect the leftovers of the previous commuter; get that promotion at work, we will fix all the messes you make when we take over and come out smelling of roses. Go ahead, be men. We are happy being who we are: women.