Check out 16 Return-To-Work Programs In India For Ambitious Women Like You!
Women have been experiencing a kind of lockdown since a long, long, time, because patriarchy dictated that they remain inside homes if they have to be deemed 'good', 'worthy' women.
Women have been experiencing a kind of lockdown since a long, long, time, because patriarchy dictated that they remain inside homes if they have to be deemed ‘good’, ‘worthy’ women.
What is it like to live like a prisoner? How could any man ever feel? When a prisoner is confined in jail, all his rights are taken away, and he cannot step out of his prescribed area. Wondering what I am speaking of? Lockdown.
Look at the very definition of lockdown – ‘a state of isolation or restricted access’, and you’ll soon realise that women have been under lockdown since centuries, living in a patriarchy that takes away all their rights as human beings. Men have been keeping them under physical or emotional lockdown for ever, and still do.
Just in one day of having a public curfew, the condition of people has deteriorated. Now can we women ask men how they feel living even one day under such conditions? How would they feel if it becomes one week of curfew? One month? Six months? More? Did you feel like a prisoner? How did you feel about not doing anything at all according to your will? Just try to put yourself inside the mind of women who have been experiencing a variation of this since ages, mister! You will probably break down at the very idea!
Perhaps the men in society need to experience more of this, to really ‘get’ what this kind of confinement, the way women have been controlled, feels. A state to which men have been, all this time, deaf and blind.
A women becomes a hard worker after undergoing years of torture, spends all her life virtually a prisoner. Yet, you say her ‘life is lived’, don’t you? Wrong. Life is lived only if one can live it free, according to what one is, what one wants and needs. Otherwise, the life just passes, women under patriarchal lockdown just exist.
Today, due to the COVID-19 crisis, people feel imprisoned, because you can’t go wherever you want to, can’t do what you want. But this is exactly what society expects of the women of the house – mother, sister, daughter, daughter-in-law, wife – just so that they be deemed ‘good’ women. I have seen this happen in my society and even in my house and raised my voice, but this voice is often unheard, silenced.
Women who do not abide by these societal rules are vilified, slut-shamed, and often face gender based violence.
Think, dear men! I have written this just to open your eyes and minds to the realities of women in India. Maybe you can think and empathise. And maybe work towards equality of human rights.
By comparing women with prisoners, one remembers this song by the one and only Lata Mangeshkar in the film Sadhana.
The end of this song goes –
Mardo ke liye har julm raavan, aurat ke liye rona bhee khata (men can do anything they want, women cannot even cry freely) Mardo ke liye laakho seje, aurat ke liye bas ek chita (men have many beds they can lie on, but a woman gets only the fiery pyre) Mardo ke liye har aish kaa hak, aurat ke liye jina bhee saja (men have a right to many pleasures, for women, even living their life is a punishment) Aurat ne janam diya mardo ko… (this woman, who has given birth to men…)
Image source: a still from the Tamil movie Srirangam
read more...
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Being a writer, Nivedita Louis recognises the struggles of a first-time woman writer and helps many articulate their voice with development, content edits as a publisher.
“I usually write during night”, says author Nivedita Louis during our conversation. Chuckling she continues,” It’s easier then to focus solely on writing. Nivedita Louis is a writer, with varied interests and one of the founders of Her Stories, a feminist publishing house, based in Chennai.
In a candid conversation she shared her journey from small-town Tamil Nadu to becoming a history buff, an award-winning author and now a publisher.
Nivedita was born and raised in a small town in Tamil Nadu. It was for schooling that she first arrived in Chennai. Then known as Madras, she recalls being awed by the city. Her love-story with the city, its people and thus began which continues till date. She credits her perseverance and passion to make a difference to her days as a vocational student among the elite sections of Madras.
Please enter your email address