“Mindsets of men”- 25 March 2015.
Rapist Mukesh Singh and his statements on women is a blaring reflection of the mindsets of men and what many men think about women. His interview and his candid comments brought out publically the rot that goes on inside the minds of such men when they see a woman. So much for regarding women as a ‘devi’ in the Indian context and so much for respecting their women, such men have their own definitions of what sort of a woman can demand dignity from men. Perhaps no category of women is capable of being respected for no one is likely to fit into their definitions- whatever that is supposed to mean. People have started going deeper into the psyche of men by calling them ‘misogynists’ as their suppressed /repressed hatred for women gets reflected through their so called studied comments as well as their random comments. ‘I just said that in jest he would say but I don’t mean it’ is the common defence these men would give quickly to justify their slips of the tongue.
In all truth a man thinks that the woman is inferior to him in all ways and therefore she should look up to him and listen to him. She should not only listen to him but obey him in totality. She should not only obey him but worship him as a God and take each word of his as the gospel truth. She should not use her own head and intelligence (as she does not have any- that is God’s verdict) and therefore not think and have opinions! He has been taught this from childhood consciously/deliberately or unconsciously as such attitudes get transmitted through culture and the prevailing atmosphere at home, in an almost automatic way. A man also thinks that a woman’s place is at home and the hearth. She may have sought education and she may have started earning some money but that does not make her equal at all. For, she is still a woman and must remember her gender at all times. However educated she must be she must bring in the dowry and she must surrender herself and listen to her husband and in-laws. She is the carrier of culture, the culture that we men will decide and she has been given the prerogative to put it into practice! She is not supposed to own any property as she should be dependent on her husband for independence will only ‘spoil’ her and she will become irresponsible. You see she is no good at thinking for her-self so she needs guidance at all times.
It is amazing that every male she meets becomes her guardian and begins to guide her whether it is her father, her husband or her son as soon as he grows up. Her friends may also start behaving like guardians rather than being companions. It all starts at home actually.
A father thinks of his daughter as a soft emotional flower and feels the need to protect her from evil eyes at all times. He thinks of her as an innocent child who can do no wrong unless someone influences her and corrupts her. So she is over protected and kept in safe custody. In a way he does not allow her to grow up and use her intellectual talents and have a mind of her own. He would rather she stay as an innocent flower until she is handed over in custody to her husband in pure form. Everything is decided for her as she is in capable of thinking for her-self is the thought behind it. She must follow the set norms otherwise she puts herself to risk and she would be to blame for her victimisation. If she was beaten up she must have provoked the male and hence deserved it! If she was raped she must have deserved it as she was roaming the streets at night or she wore pants or she was with another man so she was characterless and endless other arguments. A woman can never be right, never.
We are not against men as many would think about the feminists and their crusade for their rights, we are against their mindsets. Men and women together constitute humanity and there could not be a war between the sexes as some would like to term it and fan the flame further. A war would not benefit anyone as humanity would lose even though one sex would appear to be winning. Men seem to be winning even now although women have started marching alongside with men. Why cannot some men envisage that and like to continue to think of women as the ‘opposite sex’. Why can’t men accept women as half of the beautiful reality of human species who is equally intelligent and competent to do any tasks ‘under the sun’.
