In a country, and era, that houses a wide variety of opinions – some patriarchal and some leading to revolution, we are bound to witness some ground-breaking thoughts.
Despite the efforts of many, patriarchy is still deeply-rooted in our society and ‘feminism’ is still a curse word. The reason? Years and years of conditioning and acceptance of flawed concepts without questioning it once. And while we may, momentarily, be heartbroken over the news we’ve been reading over the past few days, we cannot be disheartened and stop our efforts to change the existing thought process. Eventually, we want to create the society that will be perfectly safe for the coming generations and hence, the self-change must begin, now!
Jaseena Backer, a parenting strategist and psychologist from Calicut, Kerala, has brilliantly explained the same in her recent post on Facebook.
She wrote a very thoughtful post about a conversation she had with her domestic help. The post is a reminder of how careless, disorganised and irresponsible patriarchy is towards both men and women. Her words pointed towards the reality of our upbringing that requires immediate attention and change.
Jaseena poignant post talks about how the freedom of one gender has been completely sacrificed to please the other.
“You have to be a good woman, respectful, because one day you will be someone’s wife, you will have to learn family morals… what it is to be a good woman????”
“The problem is not becoming a wife; it is setting the standard to become a wife rather than her own individual first. It’s suppressive and regressive”
“The India society has spent centuries grooming girls to be future good wives (sanskaari bahu), yet failing to produce good husbands who deserve them. This makes girls grow up to feel they have to cater to childish juvenile behaviour in their marriages.”
“In this patriarchal society we live in, there is a notion that, ‘girls are more mature than boys at a particular given age,’ and that is one monumental social constructs. Girls aren’t more mature than boys their age mentally. Therefore wives are not officially teachers, mentors or coaches for their husbands.”
She speaks about how situations like divorces are blamed on the freedom of will exercised by a woman.
“We as the next generation of parents ought to raise all children to be accountable, responsible and well behaved irrespective of gender. No one should be given a special benefit of any gender.”
‘When the society blames everything that goes wrong in a marriage on women or feminism, what they actually try to reinstate is that the world cannot function well because the modern woman refuses to bow down to suffer.”
That’s the fact….. and we are getting there.”
She ends her post with a strong quote:
“Women, you are not rehabilitation centers for badly raised men. It is not your job to fix him, change him, parent him or raise him. You want a partner, not a project.”
We can all relate to Jaseena’s words, can’t we? We’ve all witnessed examples of patriarchy in our daily life that we’ve felt helpless against. With more and more people speaking up, we’re making slow progress towards equality. Jaseena’s post is another positive example of the same. The day all men and women learn to respect all genders equally, we’ll live in a much calmer society. If Jaseena and smart women like her can see the truth, everyone can and everyone must!
The conversation with her help goes as follows:
Well said, Ms Backer!
Featured Image Source: Jaseena Backer on Facebook
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