Try Living As An Indian Woman, And THEN Tell Me I’m Playing The ‘Victim Card’

Women have always been told they are second class citizens, their birth unwanted, always ‘belonging’ to someone else as if they are objects, not full human beings.

For generations, women have come and gone, leading lives that have been shaped by the patriarchy, forcing women to lead a life that serves their potential poorly, in one way or another. The very patriarchy that isolates, excludes, discriminates, second-guesses, hates, hurts, harms, and abuses women also goes a mile further to tell women not to “play the victim card.”

To that patriarchy, I throw a challenge.

Try this.

Try living in the epicenter of a world that constantly tells you that you are worthless, that your birth was meaningless, that you are a burden on the family, that you menstruating makes men sick, that your family’s honour rests in your body, that every man around you is entitled to your body, that your personal agency does not exist, that your consent is a mythical creature that dances with unicorns, that your work no matter how good is not going to be remunerated as much as your male colleague’s work will be, that your consent to being married is consent to your body being used at your husband’s whim and fancy, that your place is in the kitchen, that your menopause is an excuse to get out of things, that your mental illness is just you being needy, that your education does not matter, that your freedom does not matter, that you do not matter.

Try living in the eye of this storm. Try doing half the things women do, staring the world in the face and throwing acts of resistance in its eyes to shake up the status quo. Try raising hell when the pressure of this feels like ten planets stacked up on your back.

And then tell me how tired it can make you feel. And then tell me how, despite finding all the courage in the world to fight it, there are days when you crumble and hold onto the pain because that’s what you want to do at that time. And then tell me that the resilience you found within is your bloody crown jewel that you wear with pride, with all its scars intact.

And then, tell me, just tell me, how you dared to think that a woman asserts her “victimhood” and doesn’t fight it.

Image source: a still from the movie Videsh

Kirthi Jayakumar

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