E.N.C.R.Y.P.T.E.D

Written & completed on- 17^th Aug 2019

Preached on- In smaller bits here and there!

The trigger point - A conversation with my domestic help

We live in a society where there is a constant battle for empowerment of the so called weaker sex →“weaker” not by its virtue but its position or status in the society.

Misogyny has been feeding like a parasite since centuries and it is all around us. It is in the form of tradition & family values, it’s in the eyes of that eve teaser who made you uncomfortable when you were 8, the smirks of the so called respectable men when they spotted you at the pan shop with your girlfriends, or, the whispers regarding how you really got that big promotion at work. This parasite purely feeds off the ego, insecurities and jealousy of the power hungry ‘stronger’ sex and leaves a void inside them where common sense and sense of equality is supposed to reside.

Now, due to centuries of oppression, most women think 10 times more than an average male before taking any decision for themselves. The ‘rules’ are so encrypted in their subconscious that even for most of the handful** of fiercely independent women, a small thing like a solo trip or an impulsive decision is a ‘calculated’ risk- and is modified basis safety & self-preservation tactics. 

Talking about this encryption, the other day, when I was visiting my parents, I asked our domestic help (Let’s call her X) regarding how her daughter is doing. Now, the background →her family has been working in our house for as long as I can remember. My first memory is of her mother helping us with our house-hold chores while X and her brother (when kids) would play around the house. My father tutored her brother and helped him with his schooling, college admissions and even his first job & also tutored X for as long as she studied (7^th standard to be precise). Now, my mother is tutoring X’s son who is currently in 7^th standard.

Coming back to my question to X regarding her daughter, to which she answered that “she is fine”, I further asked “what is she doing”. She smiled and said, that her daughter go married a few years ago and there is good news on the way. Before I could ask my next question, she swiftly added, “she barely scraped through 9^th standard and she was not interested in studying anyway, so we married her off”. Like I mentioned earlier, X also studied till 7^th standard and her mother had never undergone schooling. So, the encryption within the women of her household didn’t compel daughters to study as much as their sons since their greater purpose was to get married in a decent household and start their good life as a wife, daughter-in-law, mother and much more. They are okay with this and accept it as their fate as this is how it is ‘supposed to be’.

Their own argument to this rule is their socio- economic background that they’d rather spend the available money educating their son who flunked twice in primary school (post which my mother volunteered to tutor him) v/s their daughter who passed all classes without any tutoring.

Hence, when I read about the opinions of the sexists (the hosts of this parasite) that how women ‘use’ empowerment as a medium to climb up the ladder, I pity how they choose to be blind towards the extent of damage this parasite has caused deeper into our society at all socio-economic levels. 

The good news is that the awareness amongst women is spreading day by day. Many strong headed and successful women around us are setting examples, giving most of us courage to speak up against people who only objectify women to be either a whore or a mother. This courage strengthens the fact that ‘man of the house’ and ‘growing balls’ are tales of the yester years – Time for you to retire your decayed thoughts grandpa!    

** - with great pain I write ‘handful’