Patriarchy = Power & The associated danger

I was watching Satyamev Jayate the other day on the topic of ‘mardaani’ - masculinity. Men narrated the pressures they go through to prove that they’re men enough and not feminine.

From the age of 3 these men were trained ‘how to be men’, they were constantly told, you shouldn’t be afraid like a girl, you shouldn’t cry like a girl - constantly bombarded that if they show any weakness like a girl, they’re not worthy of manhood.

A man from Haryana (India’s least underdeveloped state where gender inequality is the highest) narrated his story where he wouldn’t go to school if his sister is allowed to attend the same school - apparently, it would dent his manhood, his sister getting an education just like him. His sister was stopped from schooling while that man did MBA. He bawled like a baby stating, “Today I’m a MBA and my sister is 3rd standard because of me.”

Patriarchy is all about power. Why do our machas shower needless and baseless accusations at meenachis? It’s to establish superiority because internally, they’re fed with the notion that women are intrinsically flawed and inferior so should be treated as so immaterial of it being injustice. They’re programmed by society and our patriarchal establishment that women must be condemned no matter what they do, exerting power to subdue women and expect women to accept it all like vedha vaaku (gospel truth) without rising up to question. God knows how many guys have called us immoral women for speaking out. One guy said, ‘ithenaale than ithungele kalli pal vechi kollanum’ (this is why girls should be killed with mildew milk) He’s Malaysian. I wonder how he will have so much vai koleppe (mouth fat) if his mother was killed with mildew milk.

But, I won’t blame such machas - they’re conditioned that way. They’re told not to cry like girls, not be weak like girls, not be afraid like girls from little until it’s ingrained subliminally. They associate that as girls, they should be easy to cry, are weak and should be afraid of them, that girls should be dominated and power exerted on them denotes masculinity. This is the root of all man made evil.

All these feelings are suppressed in males and they explode in violence - this is why acid attacks, revenge porn, online shaming happen if a girl rejects a guy’s overtures or leaves him. Since men are told that they’re not supposed to cry and that it’s rightfully a female emotion, they decide to harm the girls so that that female emotion is given to the female. This is a basic lack of EQ or emotional/empathy quotient which is far important than IQ. It teaches humanity.

Really, patriarchy sucks humanity out - this is why babies are raped. The exertion of power before the weak and defenceless. In the Delhi gang rape case, Mukesh Singh said that she shouldn’t have fought back. In managing KK, we’re condemned for fighting back what has been accepted as politically correct even when it’s unfair. Humanity is being able to correlate the emotions of others to themselves. When that humanity is absent, cruel things are meted out, regardless of gender. It’s all about power. Women too are capable of cruelty once in power - mother-in-law abuses, for example. Serial killers Elizabeth Bathory and Aileen Wuornos did many cruel things.

In this patriarchy power struggle, both genders are at the losing end in one way or other. Gender stereotype compounds things as it assigns gender roles which is changing but not fast enough.

The only thing that can stop this is by not telling children behave in a preset gender roles. It’s okay for boys to cry. It’s okay for girls to be rambunctious. A vagina and a penis doesn’t come with a behaviour manual. Let us all behave like humans rather than like ‘a woman’ and ‘a man.