A letter to an Indian woman

Dear anguished Indian woman

I have always been a feminist.Basically I have always believed that men and women are equals.Maybe this is because I was brought up in a family where my being a girl made no difference. At school I saw that the sports competitions differentiated between the sexes. And so I learned that men are physically stronger. But everywhere else we were equals. So when I started realizing that there are people in the world who think it isn't so, I was greatly amazed. And then I found out that the life and rights I had taken for granted had been fought for. That made no sense. Because when I figured out what 2 plus 2 was, so did the boy sitting next to me. There were no extra classes for girls. We weren't slow or anything.

And yet as I kept growing, I learnt that this is a world that hates women. As a teenager I learnt what rape was. It was a devastating thing to have to know about. That’s when feminism became anti-men for me. Men were stronger. Men had penises. Men were responsible. Men had been doing this for centuries. And with this ideology I felt utter helplessness. Because what could I do now? How could I make things better? And then there were questions. How is female education gonna help? We gotta cure the men somehow. And there was disgust. And there was anguish.

And then in the second year of college, my view of feminism changed completely. I met a girl, a smart competent girl and she honestly believed that men were intellectually superior. Here was a girl in an NIT on the cusp of a corporate career who honestly believed that half the population was smarter than her! And the more I tried to reason with her, the more insistent she became. That was just absurd. Personally I have quite a healthy sized ego and I just couldn't understand how she got this way. And slowly I figured it out. She believed it because somewhere in her upbringing this is what society had communicated to her. She believed it because her family had somehow taught her this. And then I started thinking. And what I realized is that if your parents say you are an ape, you sort of start believing that you are an ape over a period of time. Whatever the mirror might say. Because our parents define the world for us. And we love them so much and we owe them so much. We can’t discard what they say. It clings on.

How could I , some random girl she met in college, wipe over what she had learnt from the people she loved more than life?

And suddenly it wasn't the men anymore. It was society. And suddenly education made sense. Because education may make you question. When I added 2 and 2 and so did the boy next to me, I might, might just wonder, hey, I am not slower than him after"all. And then when I join a job and I work and get results, I might, might just wonder, hey, I am not so bad am I?

And so ladies, A girl would grow to respect herself. A girl would earn the respect that society has denied her for centuries. And so my only solution to what we face today is : Study and then work.

Work even if it drives you nuts. Work even if you can’t take the stress. And work most of all for the sake of your children.

Children,you say? The ones who you feel you abandon every time you leave the home to work?The one who you have this whole guilt trip over?

Yes, your children. (Oh btw I have got a working mum so please reserve the nasties)

Firstly, your children will not require in the exact same way throughout their lives. Your one year old needs you physically present 24/7 but can you say the same about your 9 year old who goes to school, has football practice and friends to play with in the evening? And what about your 15 year old, do you see him/her before dinner time anyway? But what your 9 year old needs is that you know what is going on his/her life, that you know hows school going and who his/her friends are. Will your job come in the way of this especially in this age of mobile phones soon to be video phones? Most probably not. Also Your children will always love you. Unless you really really screw things up. The love that you feel is a two way street. Your working and not spending your afternoons with them will never change that. See the way my mom is my idol. 

Secondly, your son and daughter need to see you as an individual. They need to see how you can earn money, lead people and achieve things. They need to see this so they learn to respect you. They need to be proud of you. Because the way they think of you, is how they will think of women. Your daughters will see your strength and follow suit. Your sons will see your strength and learn to see women as individuals not sex objects. You will raise a good man and good woman by setting an example

Thirdly and most importantly, motherhood is a full time job. It doesn't end when your kid is 15 or 16. It lasts for life.

I started working less than a year ago. And I am a novice trying to make sense of bosses, office politics, projects, stress- all of it. But the one support I have, the one mentor I have is my mother. Because I may bitch about office to my friends but they are all like me : new. But my mother has lived through every thing that I will experience in the next quarter of a century. And of course she loves me in a way that only she can
.

So please work. Work so that you are not just loved. Work so that you are respected. And some day little by little your children will set this horrible imbalance right. Someday all this “battle of the sexes” stuff will end. Someday there can be peace. Because we should live peacefully side by side. Man and woman. The way it was intended.