#literature

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How Have Women Always Been a ‘Topic’ in a Man’s World? If I asked a man this question, I have no idea what he’d say — he might just turn around and make me the topic instead. But I know exactly what a woman would say: nothing. Because when you are the topic, you lose all clarity; judgments pile up on you until you can no longer see yourself through the noise. So what do women do instead? They pick one of those judgments and wear it, like an ornament that was never theirs to begin with. This happened to me in school, when senior boys started calling me “Mia Khalifa.” At first I didn’t think much of it — until the day I googled who she actually was. From then on, I became insecure about my body, especially whenever I looked in the mirror. I kept wondering why they had chosen that name for me, and somewhere in my head, I began to believe them. Someone told me it was because our figures looked alike, and I believed that too. I would stand in front of the mirror for hours, judging and criticizing the way I looked. And just like me, most women end up believing whatever they’re told, even when every clue points to the opposite. Most women don’t even recognize that this hierarchy exists — or at least, our mothers never did. We are not strangers to how our own mothers never stood up for themselves, yet quietly passed the same norms on to us: “Never raise your voice at your husband,” “Keep your head down in front of elder men,” and so on. In doing so, she becomes the unwitting enforcer of a second hierarchy — her own. But there is a reason mothers pass this on to their daughters: their own mothers did the same to them, and theirs before that. As the generations continue, so does the hierarchy. It would be unfair to blame men for everything, even though they have been the principal architects of this system, while women run a smaller version of their own. The religious and spiritual conditioning women were raised on taught them only one thing: to serve and obey. Had they only had the power to break out of that cage, the system might have looked entirely different. The real question is: why couldn’t they? Why was it impossible to go against the norms? Because for them, rebellion meant death came faster than rejection or exile ever could. None of them were Gandhi. So they swallowed the chaos, tied their misery into knots, and followed in the footsteps of their “comrades” — dictators in disguise. Look into history — you don’t even need to dig — and you’ll find that nearly every invention and discovery is credited to men, far more than to women. Men have seized on that fact to question women’s ability ever since. But a question only holds power when it has no answer, or when the person who could have answered it is dead. And those who might have answered are long dead — to sati, to dowry murders, to rape, to domestic violence, to being killed simply for rebelling. So first you cut off our hands, then ask us to feed you. If women’s perceived incompetence makes men feel more prestigious and deserving, so be it. But to women, men were never the competition — their power was. There is a survey often cited, claiming that a group of men and women were sent to an island without basic resources. It concluded that none of the women could build a shelter or gather resources on their own, and that — out of sheer impatience — they ended up sharing tents with the men. However factual this survey was claimed to be, plenty of men believed it and felt their dignity validated. Of course women couldn’t build a house — and of course every claim about women having smaller brains or lower IQs than men must be true too. But what if we tested that survey differently — asked the men to cook for everyone, four times a day, to everyone’s exact preference, and listen silently to the complaints if it wasn’t good enough; to babysit the children, wash and press everyone’s clothes, clean the house twice a day, do the dishes after every single meal, polish their wives’ shoes, keep their heads bowed at all times, take the blame for every mishap and every bad grade, and look after the in-laws — their medicines, their clothes, their every wish — for a year, or even just a month. Most men would dodge that bet entirely, certain of their own superiority, because to them, this is simply a woman’s job. But there will always be another group of men who’d take up the challenge — purely out of ego. But sir, that is precisely your privilege. You wouldn’t do these chores because survival depends on it — for you, it’s a choice, an exercise of ego and free will. For women, doing the chores is the only option, because the alternative is death, disgrace, or shame. We don’t have the privilege of choice. Beyond all this, men have their own complaints too — stories of women murdering their husbands and stuffing their bodies into drums. These stories spread like spilled water, and now men say they’re scared of marriage. Fair enough — when something brutal happens within your community, you start to believe it could happen to you too, and you stop feeling safe around the people who caused that fear in you. It’s a complete circle. We don’t doubt that men carry the same ego, the same hunger to reclaim power or superiority and override that fear — what’s surprising is something else entirely. The moment this fear became real, men still found in it another opportunity to put women down: “Women put men in drums.” Since when did women acquiring the power to instill fear become anything but another loophole used against their own empowerment? Men have the privilege of choosing what frightens them. Women, even in fear, are expected to be submissive — to lie down and “enjoy it,” as the dictators would say. To be honest, rape and harassment seem almost inevitable at this point. They come in so many forms that getting rid of one only makes room for another to take its place. I wish women at least had the privilege of choosing who gets to rape them — so they could opt out of their own fathers and brothers. It isn’t always about rape or harassment — sometimes it’s simply an inappropriate touch or stare. If a bikini is enough to provoke a man into rape, then surely women should have the same right: that an inappropriate touch or stare provokes them into murder. Would that be justified? In this world, god is a man. And if we don’t abide by his rules, we are killed, or we are raped. I want every woman to choose wisely — to decide whether her fate will be as fragile as a mosquito’s life, or as deliberate as a spider’s. Everything we need in this life seems to come at the cost of our consent — have you not realized that yet? If your consent holds no value to them — if your ideology, your talents, your sacrifices mean nothing — then continuing to exist on their terms makes you a fool. Because if you cannot fight, you are only left to serve.

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