Where there is a mention of tradition or culture, most of the times women are the
target. Specifically, in patriarchal societies women go through lot of discrimination.
If a man from such society is reading this, imagine the horrors of leaving your
comfort to live in someone else’s home and succumbing to the traditions made
only for you. Atop it also facing the biases and preconceived notions from
someone else’s family. When it comes to stigma and superstitions, a woman is
always held liable for the accident she has met or luck/misfortune she has
brought. Mostly such judgements are passed by another woman present there.
I won’t go very far, I will start with traditional Indian (majorly Hindu)
practices. Women sit together and talk about wealth in the form of dowry a bride
has brought. Mothers of grooms praise or humiliate the newly wed based on that.
In still an alien home she is expected to wake up before everyone else,
take place in kitchen and relieve everyone who was there prior to her. There
are still many homes, where a ruckus is created (by another woman) when she
doesn’t abide by 500 rules of marital dressing. A lot of my friends went through the horror of
wearing compulsory bangles after wedding for a year despite the rashes, burns
and what not on their hands. Others are decorated like a Christmas tree despite
dreading them citing illogical traditions. The head in their family, a woman turned a deaf ear to their agonies.
Remember the book “Animal Farm”, where
Orwell talked about sheep bleating blindly after hearing the bleat of first sheep. This is
what tradition has done to us. We are mere followers, blindly accepting
everything that has been happening from ages. We don’t intend to question it,
not for our sake, not for the sake of our generations to come.
When Karwa Chauth comes, a woman is
expected to stay hungry, even if she is pregnant. Because nothing else is
important for “mothers”-in-law than their superstitions and sons. Post
delivering the baby, birth of a daughter doesn’t create exhilaration like birth
of son in many families. If a son is born, lo and behold, there is another set tradition
to follow. But again, only for the mother. A mother of a boy is expected to
keep another fast for his long life and well-being. Nothing for a daughter. Because
in patriarchal societies a man’s life is more significant than a woman’s life. In
case she doesn’t want to follow it, she stays silent in a fear that the family
of groom will boycott her. After which a biased stigma of separation will haunt
her more than him. Therefore, she continues to follow sexist traditions till her
death, ignoring her age and health.
During the wedding, her parents do Kanya-daan.
Being a woman, it seems more regressive it sounds. Suddenly she becomes a thing
to give in charity from being a daughter who lived with equal dignity. Mothers don’t object it, and future mothers wont object it either. In
work places as well, many times, women get insecure by other women and create
tsunami of problems for them. Women haven’t totally learned to stand for each
other.
Few days back, I saw a video, where a famous Islamic preacher Zakir Naik was
giving a talk about symbolic beating of wife. He seemed to be putting efforts
to reduce violence on women through his misogynistic statements. He never said
that a wife should not be beaten, not even symbolically. He also didn’t talk
about rule of metaphorical beating husbands, for the much bigger sins like
when they rape in marriages, abuse physically or publicly or caught in
infidelity etc. If you observe closely, you may find sexist things in most of the
traditions.
If there is a God, he cannot be sexist. Only a culture, a community, a tradition,
a religion or a human can be! Stand up for the women in your life, be it your daughter,
wife, sister, friend, colleague or someone-in-law when needed, if you haven’t
already. But before everyone else, a woman should learn to stand up for a
woman.
Have you faced pressure to follow sexist tradition in your culture, or
religion? Do you also think that we are brain washed from ages? Do you have an experience to share?
