My Fight against ‘Gender-Stereotypes'

I started writing this on being tagged for ‘My 10 sins against Gender-stereotypes’ but it took a form of its own. I have included a poem I wrote long back. ‘10’ is too small a number for the list my sins against gender stereotype and ‘otherwise’ (lol), a hundred would be the nearest estimate. Since I may end up in a lot of trouble for such confessions, I have, instead, given you a true story from the story of my married life.

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I wish it were as simple as calling a spade a spade.

It is not.

It has a history that has proved difficult to rewrite. I think is started in the cave of the early man where muscle and stamina decided the fate of a tribe. A pregnant woman couldn’t hunt, nor could a mother carry her newborn into the battle field. Blessed with a leak-proof and uninflatable body, man took over as an ever-ready protector of an unfortunate vulnerable species called ‘woman’.

Centuries of stereotyping

Has set in concrete minds

Reinforced by the need

To get the menial jobs done,

Created a species alien to man

Ruled and used and wooed to comply.

Stereotyping!  Who’s to be blamed?

I think women are more to be blamed for the image that is in vogue today! I bet she gained more from it than she would like to admit. And did it make her timid and afraid to try new things? I think it did.

Most women I see around me, have resigned to the fact that they are inferior. Women, who see domestic violence as natural and accept it as a way of life, may be on the decline, but they still do not recognize emotional blackmailing as an offence. That’s were societal stereotyping plays a role. Step out of the line of accepted behaviour, and you are branded. The same behaviour in men is warranted ‘macho’, and (accepted by women too) as a biological right.

Branded she is in everything she does

GOSSIP she does while men just communicate

SCHEAMER she is while men strategize

She NAGS on and on while he just insists

Mask in place she is DUPLICITOUS but world-wise he is

if the mask were his

SHREWISH she is while men just shrewd and clever

Progress makes her NYMPHOLEPTIC

but he is but a go-getter

Lateness gets her the LOOSE WOMAN tag while man

relax and bond late into the night

Are there women who have braved the onslaught of verbal abuse directed at them by the protectors of societal virtue?

Kamala Das comes to mind. Branded an ‘iconoclast’ for her description of female sexual desires very candidly, unfettered by society’s notions of right and wrong. She simply embraced the role of a very honest woman, very unlike any regular Indian woman poet. She had the guts to say, "I always wanted love, and if one doesn't get it within ones home, one strays a little."

Women everywhere are rewriting rules

Labels flying as new domains open

Retaining her name and meeting him halfway

The revolution is here with wheels spinning faster

Get off the brand-wagon and join in the fun.

Remember she does the cooking 
‘coz you don’t know how.

So what is being the opposite of a stereotypical woman? If she is not submissive, then she is arrogant. If she has no time for small talk, she is proud. The list is never-ending.

Can you be polite, sensitive, elegant, well dressed, nonprofane uttering smart go getter and still be known as a proud, my-way-or-the-highway type.

Working women are hard pressed for time and the burden of the stereotypic ‘domestic labour’ falls on her shoulder. She ends up doing both with aplomb. As I have said in my poem, “Remember she does the cooking ‘coz you don’t know how.”  And it is time for men to “Get off the brand (male-stereotype)-wagon and join in the fun”.

With 3 men in the house, I went on a 4 day spoon-down some10 years ago. I neither cooked nor fetched, picked-up-after nor laid the table. I ate what they brought home from the Hotels. I slept, after the TV was switched off, on top of discarded towels and clothes. No morning alarms and no time keeping. Chaos reigned. My home sweet home, looked like Laila had come visiting.  After the 4 day strike and after some earnest finger-pointing, there was dialogue. Lines were drawn and redrawn, till we were all exhausted.

I think it is all about being ‘assertive’. Woman has to stop being an ever-so-overused- foot-mat and unfurl to assert herself. Set limits for foot-mattishness. Get the family involved by assigning duties and make each one of them accountable for those. It could be a Mahabharat at home during the initiation but steer the boat through those choppy waters with humour!

The change starts at home. Fight for what you want. Be the change you want to see. The world would be a happier place if there were no inequalities, so would a family.

Give the woman her due.