Check out 16 Return-To-Work Programs In India For Ambitious Women Like You!
The roots of male pedophilia run deep in our culture, are sanctioned and normalized by it; a 'couple' needs to be an older man and a younger woman as wife.
The roots of male pedophilia run deep in our culture, are sanctioned and normalized by it; a ‘couple’ needs to be an older man and a younger woman as wife.
Trigger Warning: This speaks of child sexual abuse and violence against women and may be triggering to survivors.
I only ever had one conversation about sex with my mother, when I was separating from my first partner. She was asking me what exactly was making me unhappy enough to take such a momentous step. And among other things I told her that our sex life was shot.
And hardly were those words out of my mouth that she cried, ‘What? How can he blame you for it? He is the man. It is his job to make you how he wants you to be.’
I was taken totally aback. I had no idea what she was talking about. ‘Make me how he wants me?’ What the hell was that?
I finally got it a few years later while reading a novel by Mahashweta Devi. In it, a terrified 13-year-old child bride, standing before her 45 plus disapproving husband on her wedding night, pleads with him to ‘make her as he wants her’ because she does not know how to ‘serve’ him.
That is when things clicked into place for me. Both the novel and my mother were talking about grooming — in the sexual context a process in which a grown man trains his child sexual victim to be obedient, submit to his sexual demands, to follow orders and perform as expected. In general grooming means just that — training someone to do your bidding in seemingly loving and gentle ways. A younger woman, even a child.
It was quite a shock to me that my mother had heard of the practice, and that it was something so perfectly normalized she did not sense anything wrong about it.
But that was also hardly surprising because her own mother, my grandmother, was abducted at age 12 to be married to a 28-year-old man from a family of zamindars — my grandfather (that is another story altogether.) Her grandmother, my great-grand-mother, was married off to a guy said to have finished college (likely 20 plus years of age) at age three. Her uncle, her father’s elder brother, married a girl of 15 at age 50, after his first wife passed away when my mother was already ten years old. Grown men, even middle aged men, marrying children was totally normalized in the culture.
The family actually had ‘cute funny’ stories to tell about child marriages with zero recognition of the trauma of the girl children involved. Outside the sexual context it was common conversation in the family how it is good to marry girls off early before they have well defined personalities so they ‘adjust well’ in the sasural — which I have heard too. And which I now recognize as as another socially sanctioned grooming practice.
So as a child or teen it is quite probable my mother may have heard and absorbed what she repeated to me in any family conversation. She herself was married at age 17 to a man 10 years her senior, so she may have heard such stuff applied to herself, and again, at that tender, hopeful stage in life, swallowed it whole.
I wish I could have talked to my mother that day in more detail about what she meant and where she had learnt what she said to me. But she, like most women of her generation, was never open to conversation on the subject of sex and it was a miracle she talked at all. I don’t have hope that she might want to talk if I talk to her about the subject now. So what I am saying after this is my guesses on what the context might be.
When I look back at that brief conversation with my mother I wonder, why did she think that the daughter who she had taken trouble to educate so she could have a career and be independent, needed to be sexually groomed by her husband? Why could she not think that I might have sexual needs too and might want to walk out of a marriage if they were not met? It was not as if she was not aware of her own sexual needs. I had overheard her having furious fights with my father about her sexual frustration in her marriage. So why could she not see the same need in me?
My guess is that like a lot of women internally crippled by patriarchy, she was also divided between wanting liberation and believing the patriarchal myth that was drilled into her at a very tender age. While her own sexual frustration might have bubbled up as a natural reaction to years of oppression, her belief system about the older man younger woman relationship might have just stayed frozen where it was.
And to emphasize the central point of this post — that the culturally approved male pedophilia hardwiring in our society is deep and alive. The history is too recent to overlook. My grandmother was married as a child. My mother grew up believed in grooming, and was married before legal age of consent. I married an older man in my thirties and initially welcomed his grooming — not sexually per se but in psychological terms — because while I did not expressly believe in grooming, there was the unconscious conditioning. My daughter experienced something similar at age 19, but was thankfully able to walk out of it soon, given the fact that she has access now to better resources to figure out abuse and inequality in a relationship than I or my mother did. That is the most recent four generations of my family’s women.
It is not an accident that men of all ages feel entitled to getting a docile younger woman who they can influence easily — they have been told by our toxic culture for ages and ages that they are entitled to an endless supply of female docility. It is a long job for us women to examine that jargon deeply and reject it, along with our own conditioning thst makes us unconscious victims of men trying to groom us to be their handmaids.
Image source: a still from the web series Bulbbul
Aparna Pallavi's current callings are as a therapist, contemplative writer and researcher of indigenous and forest foods. Gender and patriarchy are among her favorite subjects in her contemplative writing. Formerly she has had a read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
People say that women are the greatest enemies of women. I vehemently disagree. It is the patriarchal mindset that makes women believe in the wrong ideology.
The entire world celebrates International Women’s Day on March 8, 2024. It should be a joyful day, but unfortunately, not all women are entitled to this privilege, as violence against women is at its peak. The experience of oppression pushes many women to choose freedom. As far as patriotism is concerned, feminism is not a cup of tea in this society.
What happens when a woman decides to stand up for herself? Does this world easily accept the decisions of women in this society? What inspires them to be free of the clutches of the oppression that women have faced for ages? Most of the time, women do not get the chance to decide for themselves. Their lives are always at the mercy of someone, which can be their parents, siblings, husband, or children.
In some cases, women do not feel the need to make any decisions. They are taught to obey the patriarchal system, which makes them believe that they are right. In my family, I was never taught to make decisions on my own. It was always my parents who bought dresses and all that I needed.
14 years after her last feature film Dhobi Ghat, storyteller extraordinaire comes up with her new film, Laapataa Ladies, a must watch.
*Some spoilers alert*
Every religion around the world dictates terms to women. The onus is always on women to be ‘modest’ and cover their faces and bodies so men can’t be “tempted”, rather than on men to keep their eyes where they belong and behave like civilized beings. So much so that even rape has been excused on the grounds of women eating chowmein or ‘men will be men’. I think the best Hindi movie retort to this unwanted advice on ‘akeli ladki khuli tijori ki tarah hoti hai’ (an alone woman is like an open jewellery box) came from Geet in Jab We Met – Kya aap gyan dene ke paise lete hain kyonki chillar nahin hain mere paas.
The premise of Laapataa Ladies is beautifully simple – two brides clad in the ghunghat that covers their identity get mixed up on a train. Within this Russian Doll, you get a comedy of errors, a story of getting lost, a commentary on patriarchy’s attitude towards women, a mystery, and a tale of finding oneself, all in one. Done with a mostly light touch that has you laughing and nodding along.
Please enter your email address