I have never understood the data from UNICEF on attitudes of teenagers on domestic violence
15-19 year olds:
57% boys and 53% girls in India found nothing wrong in wife-battering if wife hasn’t cooked food well, she gave back answers, she didn’t inform husband before leaving the house, she neglected children, she refused sex.
– UNICEF Global Report Card on Adolescents 2012
In so many of our narratives we insist that women need to be tamed and who better to do it than the men? Even most of our abuses are either connected with a woman’s private parts-T-H-I-N-K……. or some other form of sexual violation again connected with a woman….Hope you are T-H-I-N-K-I-N-G, recollecting and turning scarlet,hopefully,with shame.
If we switched the narratives to reflect the truth, as we would want it, it would emerge that MEN AND WOMEN ARE ALLIES. It’s this alignment towards equality that gives rise to movements like MAVA (Men Against Violence Against Women).It’s a unique concept in a country like India where the attitudes towards women are so openly condescending and even in countries like the United States where the attitudes seem to be similar ,albeit couched in euphemisms. MAVA is India’s first organization of sensitive and concerned men, working since 1993, to stop and prevent gender-based violence against women, through leadership-driven training among Boys and Men. Using out-of-the box methods young men and adolescent boys are sensitized and ‘men’tored to address issues of sexual health and gender-sensitive behavior. The focus is on Boys and Men deconstructing and reconstructing Masculinity by setting examples through self. If men were our allies then they wouldn’t want to be perpetrators of any abuse against women because we would all be working towards the same goal-equality. From this equality would emerge a focus on what are the real issues that would help to make the world a better place rather than the gruesome numbers which reflect statistics of abuse.
What I fail to comprehend is why exactly do women need to be tamed? What are we doing wrong? If we laugh too loudly, something which I do most of the time, it’s not ladylike. If we wear short dresses we are fast, if we wear Indian clothes we are conservative, if we talk about sex we are cheap, if we have sex, unless for the purpose of procreation, we should be branded as sluts and so on and so forth. What is the biggest crime of it all is- IF WE CAN’T have children and we can’t COOK-then we need to be hanged because who will feed our poor men and if also keep the human race alive and kicking . Last I checked, there are a number of fantastic male chefs-think Jamie Oliver- in the world and I am sure our husbands, sons and boyfriends could take a cue from them and maybe serve us good food at home. As far as the survival of the human race is concerned I am sure we all know it takes two to tango-in this case the sperm and the egg so a one sided blame game just doesn’t cut ice.
It seems the benchmark for women is a moving target and just when we are about to cross this benchmark we are stuck with a new set of objectives to accomplish. It’s like being in a History Exam and being given the questions from Metaphysics. Of course, you know what happens then-you get a big F.
You do see the simplicity of the perversity- we will always get an F whatever we do, unless the men join the fight as ‘real men’ and instead of inflicting violence, they actually man up and stop the violence. Beating or battering is only for eggs, not for women- so go ahead and beat those eggs and serve me a good Spanish omelette because I can’t really cook. If you need help-not with the cooking-but with stopping the violence-give me a holler.
Need help? In the U.S., call1-800-799-SAFE (7233) for the National Domestic Violence Hotline .