Resident Editor, Daijiworld.com

June 23, 2012

Malathi was a brilliant student in college. Her friends, teachers, and she herself expected her name to be etched in the annals of success a few years down the line. Blessed with the gift of the gab, a quick intellect and deft skills with the pen, not to mention drop-dead beauty, she had all the ingredients to make it to national fame, if not international. She was well qualified too, with double post-graduate degrees in two related streams.

Now, married and settled abroad, she is killing time and boredom, her intellect rusting away each passing moment, her charm and gifts fading into oblivion.

It is not Malathi's story alone, but of thousands of young women who dream big and achieve higher in terms of education, only to end up nameless within the four walls of the kitchen, while their husbands race ahead up the ladder of success. The matrimonial columns demand fair, beautiful, tall and 'well-qualified' girls, but despite all the talk of women's liberation and 'modern woman', the reality is not all women are allowed to make use of their qualifications after marriage. The few lucky ones need 'permission' of the husbands and in-laws, which many a time turn into ugly family feuds. And when it comes to those who do earn, it is considered a 'supplement' to the husband's earnings, even if she earns more than him.

Traditionalists may contend that according to the law of division of labour, the man earns and the woman looks after the home and family. But those who subscribe to such view need also to understand that this very notion has been the primary reason for a majority of crimes against women, especially within the domestic confines. Wife-beating to sexual abuse to harassment of even young daughters, the man as the 'head of the family' and 'sole provider of bread' considers it his 'right' to treat his wife and daughters has he pleases. Cases of incest are not uncommon, like the one in Kerala last year, where a man not only raped his teenaged daughter, but also 'lended' her to almost a hundred men. Of course, we cannot generalize, but we cannot ignore the reality either terming them as 'exceptional' cases.

The intention here is not to cast a gloomy picture of the status of women in the society, nor can one do so given the progress women have made, but only to speak of the unspoken agony of women who are forced to bury their dreams for family and society. We have come a long way in women's liberation, but we cannot entirely claim to be a progressive society as long as a woman hesitates to walk the streets alone at night, with or without a pepper spray in her bag.

It is a sad fact that the so-called 'modern' woman is visible only among the urban populace. The majority of the population, which is pushed into the idyllic and often inaccessible corners of the country, is immersed in societies where honour killing, dowry harassment and female foeticide/infanticide still persist. Where poverty haunts, the education of the female child is often sacrificed for her brother, without any consideration to her dreams, or to her wish. Though the mindset may be slowly changing in semi-rural areas, education of women in backward settings and communities has still a long way to go.

Depriving education to girls is one thing, depriving job opportunities to capable women, quite another. The latter is as bad as the former, if not worse. An uneducated woman would be frustrated at not being able read and write, or not being qualified for a good job. But in women who are capable of getting any well-paid job and even doing better than their male counterparts, the frustration at not being able to do so is many times greater. In the former case, lack of education often keeps the woman in the dark about her own capabilities, so acceptance becomes easier. But in the latter situation, helplessness and inability despite capability can become unnerving to ambitious women, many times leading to depression. It isn't easy to see other much less qualified people surge ahead in their careers and say to oneself, "If only....."

Most parents feel they have done their duty once they have made their daughters engineers and doctors and got them married. But the duty ought to go a bit further - in ensuring that even after marriage, they continue to chase their dreams, do not have to sacrifice their careers or for that matter, even shift to remote places where their ambitions get squished for the sake of a 'well-settled' groom. True, every father wants to find a high-earning, US-settled man, but in the bargain, the daughter's education and her wishes should not be sidelined. How many cases have we heard of where a man is asked to shift base for the sake of his wife's career? How many men would be ready to give up their high-paying jobs to look after the kids? But just reverse these situations, and we find it is a common case in most families, where the woman becomes the sacrificial goat.

At the time of marriage, the prospect of settling abroad with the husband attracts many young women, but it is not all hunky-dory. Soon, loneliness, homesickness and joblessness eat away the most qualified women. Being away from family and friends, there is no one to share one's frustration, no channel to vent the pain of being alone in a strange new world. Slowly, it becomes the case of a bird in a golden cage - the cage glitters bright, but inside there is only darkness and a mountain of anxiety waiting to explode. Yes, some do get jobs and move on, but it is not the case with everyone.

The problem gets worse for women who settle down in the Middle East countries where women do not enjoy the freedom of their western or Indian counterparts. A friend of mine who learnt driving here in India forgot it a few months after she settled in Saudi Arabia with her husband, all because women are not allowed to drive there. But giving up driving is a small sacrifice, compared to the ones that qualified, educated women are forced to make after marriage.

Another lady I know, now in her middle age, is a brilliant mind, capable of making the toughest of calculations in minutes, grasping situations and solving problems like no one else. It was her dream to study psychology, but she was forced to discontinue studies when she was just 17. After much insistance and arguments and a battle almost, she was allowed to pursue first PU, but soon after she was married and her life became the story of so many other women. She would have become a highly-capable psychologist if only she had been given one chance, but that was not to be, thanks to a few narrow-minded ideas the society still holds dear. Many years later her daughter too met the same fate, but in her case life played more cruel games in snatching away her husband forever, leaving her with three little daughters and without enough education. But then, being the iron-willed woman she is, she continued her PU and professional education after her husband's death, and today is a qualified dentist with a flourishing practice of her own.

Ultimately, though diamonds may be a woman's best friend and shopping her favourite passtime, what she really needs is something to keep her mind engaged in intellectual pursuits, an opportunity to prove her worth in a man's world, and work that makes good use of her education and knowledge.

But it is not enough talking only of injustice towards educated women alone. The scar of atrocities against women goes much deeper, and becomes uglier when statistics are placed before us. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, in 2010 alone, there were 2,13,585 resgistered cases of crime against women and girls, which included sexual harassment (9,961), importation of girls (36), abduction (29,795), dowry deaths (8391), molestation (40,613), rape (22,172) and cruelty by husband and relatives (a whopping 94,041). What makes the statistics even more shocking is that though 92 percent of the perpetrators were chargesheeted, only 27.8 were actually convicted.

The above figures speak of the sorry state of the female sex in the country. And these are only the cases that were registered. There are thousands of instances of sexual harassment and rape where the victim prefers silence rather than the mudslinging in the public. Divya (name changed), a college student who was raped by a friend she trusted was made to go through a harrowing time during the trial to prove her case. Questions that were not only demeaning, but highly insulting to any individual were thrown at her openly in the presence of scores of people. Her private garments and her body parts were discussed as if she were an animal. As she said to a mediaperson, she stopped being 'Divya' and became a 'rape victim' whose privacy was violated and made a meal of in public.

And it doesn't happen in rural, backward areas alone, but in the streets of Delhi, the posh suburbs of Mumbai and the cozy homes of the rich and powerful too. Provoking dresses worn by some women or their outgoing nature have often been held against women victims, but if dress and nature alone were reasons, no woman in conservative rural areas would have been touched, no five-year-old child would be molested, no elderly woman would be stripped off her dignity. But that is not the case. Human nature is the same everywhere, as Sherlock Holmes would say, and hence the atrocity against women is the same everywhere too, only the statistics may change. And even though shocking, the statistics fail to portray the real pain that the victims go through, the mental agony, the physical abuse, the stares of the little minds that still hold women responsible for being raped and the mere shame of being touched by a man they detest.

Women's liberation has still a long way to go, and perhaps, total liberation would be impossible. First and foremost, it is the men who need to be educated about women's rights and their capabilities. In some cases, even the male child is not educated enough, and when such men are married off to women better than them, friction begins. Studies have proved that at work place, men generally do not like to take orders from a female boss, and between spouses, the fact that the wife earns more than the man doesn't always go down well. Secondly, women themselves should be made aware of their capacities, and be made to realize that in marriage the man and the woman are equals. Lastly, respect for both sexes should be inculcated right from school, and co-education plays a vital role in this process. Growing up together in school fosters mutual understanding and respect, and it becomes easier to accept each other's success and failures later on.

All said and done, the world still waits for the day when there will not be any more Falaks and Afreens (babies who were battered by their own) and no more Divyas, but only Indra Nooyis and Barkha Dutts.