“The second gender”, “the other sex” etc are often used to refer to the same gender responsible for giving us birth, bringing us up, often being our first best friend and doing every possible sacrifice for our happiness. Indeed we are talking about a “Woman” not just a mother, daughter, wife or sister but a being complete in herself. Ages of oppression has led to this equal sex being relegated to a secondary position. However the question arises is it their weakness or sacrifice which has been responsible for this? In most cases it is their sacrifice and never ending love for us which has come to be regarded as their weakness. So isn’t it our responsibility to be a part of this new age “restoration” – the restoration of the equal rights of women.
When we talk about this restoration we have to accept the fact that it cannot happen in one day not even one year. Years of suppression and oppression will require years of efforts to bring the women back to equal prominence. One of the fist steps to take in this direction is to end violence against women. This end of violence is even more important than the education of women. If a girl or a woman is abused physically or mentally she will psychologically not be in a position to accept any other forms of reform. There are various ways in which women are violated and most of the times this violence is inflicted by men or by women who have an altered psychology towards the same gender due to ages of living in a patriarchal society (mother in law, sister in law etc). Domestic violence can only end if men start treating women as their equal rather than “half beings“. Issues such marital rape, forced abortion, forced multiple pregnancies (especially in the Third World Countries) need to be highlighted rather then giving them a cover of religious excuse so that both men and women become more aware of the rights of the latter.
We say that the contemporary women who are working in MNCs, hospitals, schools and every other possible field are a symbol of the new free women who enjoy equal rights. Is that really the scenario? Is there no violence committed towards this so call new wave of working women? Lower wages than their male fellow counterparts, continuous passes being made towards them in the name of promotions, higher salary or simply owing to their looks – are these not forms of sugar coated violence? How can men help women in these scenarios? Simply by being a little more understanding – a husband should make his wife comfortable enough so that she can discuss these kinds of problems with him and he can support her to come out of them or the boss should treat women in the same light he treats this male employees and protect their dignity and self respect rather than squashing them under the boots of male chauvinism.
Even if we consider the role of younger males in this fight to end violence towards women there are many ways of doing so: standing by the side of a mother who is battered by a drunk or aggressive father, by simply not occupying the seats reserved for women in buses, trains etc, by protesting against the distinction made in the family towards him and his sister or by simply being a compassionate human rather than an animal driven by a crave of flesh – this will end major forms of violence such as rape, acid throwing etc.
These are only few ways in which men can contribute towards the end of violence committed towards women. However this is only possible with a change in the mentality of men. The women on their part should also start asserting their rights of equal beings and help the men to come out of their psychological barrier which provokes them to think themselves of being a superior species. And it is not very difficult to come out of male chauvinistic mentality – if we can just close our eyes for a minute and think of all the sacrifices and work a woman does through out her life be it as a mother, daughter, wife, sister with a mentality that they do it out of love and not weakness we will not be able or at least we would think twice before committing any violence towards them. If we still do continue committing violence towards them then there is no difference between us and a wild animal or even worse as many a times even animals do not bite hands which feed them.
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