Our world is witnessing a paradigm shift in the way we think….but the war still wages on.
Ever since the original sin, a war has been waging, that has the power to either shape or destroy humanity as we know it. I am a part of this war of the ages, and so are you. Every person on this planet has been fighting, knowingly or unknowingly. The cause of war? One singular reason, existence. Or let me better rephrase it, co-existence. The war is to be free of taboos, to be acquitted of being unworthy of entering certain places, to be free of the blame of provocation when attacked, to be liberated from gender roles and stereotypes, to be able to claim the night and not surrender it to the wolves that roam free. The war is to be treated as another person, and not just a “woman”.
Every time, a boy whistles at a girl and gets away with it, both of them take a side in the war. Every time we see someone misbehaving with a woman, and choose to remain quiet, we take a side in the war. Every time a loved one puts a pepper-spray in her purse, they take a side in the war. Every time a father enrols his daughter for self-defence classes, they both take a side in the war. Every time a woman is shamed by the society for the choice of clothes that she has, they take a side in the war. And as long as short dresses still fire up questions about one’s morals, as long as obscene adjectives define a woman living with a man but the man is free of such judgement, as long as a lone girl is seen as prey by the wolves, and as long as men can’t bear being the pillion to a woman riding the motorbike, people will continue to take sides.
The war is balanced by fathers who trust their daughters with ther decisions, by the men who refuse to stay silent on matters that really matter, and by the women who challenge the norms and dare to rise up in a patriarchal and mysogynistic society. Though these people are overwhelmingly outnumbered, they have never given up. Blind optimism it might be, but they have indeed brought a change in the society. As we grow into a generation of iconoclasts, questions are being raised against age old traditions and beliefs. As a generation of with fearless individuals takes its place in society, callous and sexist remarks by influential people no longer go unnoticed, unquestioned, and unanswered. The world is witnessing an paradigm shift in the way we think, and though that is more than welcome, the war still wages on.
We are a society of hypocrites. We see women as fragile and frail, something that needs to be protected, but what are we protecting them from? Ironic as it may seem, we are protecting them from us, the male half of the society! We lock them up knowing we are the wolves, we put them on restraints knowing we have none. But then we break through the yellow tapes we put around their lives like it’s a race and that is the finishing line! We have put up fences of barbed wires around them not to keep us out, but to keep them in. And the monsters still lurk under internet highways, using their keyboards like catapults to hurl insults at anything that doesn’t fit their idea of ‘right’ as if they just can’t stand change. They have victimized and fed off innocent girls for their own enjoyment, and their despair gives them pleasure. And we? We discuss these people over a cup of coffee or tea with a grimace and a shrug, almost forgetting that they exist among us! They aren’t the bigger problem, we are.
If I ever have a daughter, I don’t want her to explore the world riddled with fear, I want her to run wild like a free bird, and worry about nothing. I want her to be able to what her heart desires without having to face any consequences. I want her to not be petrified when she sees a group of strangers in an alley as she walks home alone. I want her decisions and aspirations to never be shaped by what others may think. And I know, that the only way that can be achieved is by changing our outlook, to let the men of our house realize that that they won’t get away with whatever they wish to do, that they are in no way superior to women, that a “woman” is a person, and not an object. The world can be every bit as beautiful as a five year old girl thinks it to be, if only we could rise to her expectations.
