The Less Among Equals

December 28, 2014

“We've begun to raise daughters more like sons... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.” ― Gloria Steinem

A few days back I happened to read a small article on the webpage of 'The Logical Indian', about a man who offered a seat to a woman in the bus and in return got slapped at, with resenting looks from the other passengers. In his defense all he wanted to do, was offer a tired lady his seat, but she misunderstood it to be some kind of lewd behaviour. The poor man didn't say a word but humbly accepted the humiliation and alighted at the next stop.

I have a read a lot of articles revolving around the atrocities that women had to face at the hands of a man, articles about fighting and standing up to your rights against men. Being a strong, independent women, I am in all support to this fight, but who exactly am I fighting against? Is it against a man offering me to carry my heavy bag, or a is it against a man offering to drop me back home late at night, or is it against the same man who tried to offer the lady that seat in the bus?

In a country where nearly half its population is trying to fight for women's rights, we also have a few iniquitous people, running rackets to trap young and educated men and blackmail them into paying money. If this money isn't paid, the innocent man is charged with molestation and of course who would listen to his plea. At one hand, where majority of rape victim are females, we also have a handful of male rape victims, but how many cases of male rape victims do we hear of? For how many of these cases do we raise our voice? Moreover how many of these cases even come to the forefront? Not many do, and the reason behind this is, there is no one to support a cry of a man, simply because the society never allows a man to cry. A man is suppose to be strong, courageous, muscular and never a victim of a crime. Men are supposed to respect women, love them, protect them from every danger, take charge of all the work, but are never allowed to break down. Isn't this a lot of responsibility on one shoulder? But take a look at your father, your brother or your husband, who work tirelessly everyday to make our life comfortable. I don't deny the effort that a mother, a sister or a wife puts in, but at least we women are allowed to cry, complain or 'nag'; but men are not allowed to do even that much. For every woman out there, try to imagine a moment of happiness and not being able to express that in the form of a tear, or a moment of pain and not being able to cry over that, or not being able to talk to your family or friends about the problems in life... Isn't that too much to ask?

When we teach a brother to protect his sister, we aren't empowering the girl, rather weakening her and letting her know that she is incapable of protecting herself. At the same time, we inculcate the values of manhood in a boy and let him know that he can never cry or get hurt. This expectation that we have from a boy, to become a so called 'Macho-Man' is the biggest problem of our society today. When you can't live up to the expectation you either try to enforce it or hide it, neither of which benefits anyone. Again I come back to my question, who is it that I am fighting against or who is it that I am fighting for? Most of the times we are so carried away in our uprising that we forget our cause. But one must know that yelling in a crowd without knowing the reason is not just ignorance but foolishness too.

As we step into 2015, let's all fight for a good cause. Appreciate all the good men in your life, say a thank you, appreciate every brave woman you come across. In a small way almost all of us can make a difference. All we have to do is teach our future generations, help your daughters to be strong, teach your sons to be a gentlemen not protectors. Help them to stand against injustice and you never know, 10 years from now our next generation would be living in society known simply for - Equality.

 

Jane Tellis Archives:

 

 

By Jane Tellis
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Comment on this article

  • Roshan Braganza, Mumbai

    Thu, Jan 01 2015

    I really appreciate efforts of Author in narrating plight of Indian men and their sorry state of affairs , especially Anti men judiciary and misandrist society. Its shocking even respected Judges are propagating men hatred and giving biased judgements . Police , bureaucracy , media glamorize female victims specially sexual assault cases and hijack the government to draft Biased and Sexist policies which often traps innocent men. . Amendment of crpc 2013 is big example , not only they made it Gender Just ( not gender neutral ! ) and evidence act has been codified , so any woman's verbal statement is enough to accuse and arrest a decent man. Besides when men get harassed by woman , there absolute no legal clause to support him. Its strange such a wonderful post garnered only 4 comments , may be people are still not aware of such naked truth .

    Time has come for men to play victim card and get justice. Remember , CRIME HAS NO GENDER , Eg:: Rohtak incident , where innocent boys have been victimized

  • Roshan, Bangalore

    Tue, Dec 30 2014

    The message is driven home in a simple, but effective manner in this article. Well written and wish it is read by many. Congratulations to the author.

  • Don gregory, puttur

    Mon, Dec 29 2014

    A very thoughtful article Jane:)

  • Valerian D'souza, Udupi / Mumbai

    Mon, Dec 29 2014

    Dear Jane,
    Our law makers should have had the ability of clear thinking like you have. For being so, one need to be truthful and bold as you are.
    Why should our fight ever be against males? Are all males bad? And again females expect males to protect them? It should always be between right and wrong.
    Can male and female ever be happy without each other? Both genuinely need each other.
    God created them for each other.
    God never judges on the basis of gender, he judges between righteous and wrong.

  • Salian, Mangalore

    Sun, Dec 28 2014

    Jane, it is a nice article thanks for understanding poor men's problem. Yes, there are several cases women torturing men which is not coming to the limelight and miss using the law. I think men and women should be treated equally. I think you have correctly identified the issue where some women’s are misusing the law to gain their benefit.
    Another point which I want to share here is I am watching several debates in the TV, related to rape, molestation, attack on women etc. I see some of the so called leaders (women protection) or politicians (especially women) talking about the issue. I think these people are taking advantages of the issue rather than helping the victim. I don’t think they will allow their daughters to wear indecent dress. They come for debate wearing decent dress like sari but in the debate they support for indecent dress. They are spoiling the younger girls by giving lecturers. When we talk about dress code they attack on the other side. I am not in favour of dress code but it is a good culture to wear decent dress which will bring down lot of rape or molestation cases. I ask why some girl’s are provoking men by wearing sexy dresses? Because of the provocation rape, molestation cases are increased. I don’t think changing mindset of all men is easy. There should be co-operation from both sides


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