Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Bloody Patriarchal World

Maybe it stems from the fact that I come from the other spectrum of the universe that of matriarchy or that my patience is lost with the world and the way it works. We were talking about media laws in class today and looking at the judicial system in countries across the world and some of the topics were just too reactionary to abstain from writing about them.

Women in America started voting in 1920, after the 19th amendment was passed. Till then they had no say in the politics of a country, goodness gracious. Not that I am all women’s liberation types or anything, but it’s just outright darned absurd. The ratio of men versus women is all messed up anyway. Men still treat women like they are inferior most of the times, sometimes there are inherently unconscious things they say or do that proves that its lineage. Passed down from generations.

The discussion of including laws in Afghanistan that legalize marital rape if you pay for any treatment later and starving the woman if she refuses to have sex with her husband. This is happening today, in the world we live in now. Where is the line? Is there one? Is there no respect for a woman because she is of another gender? Man is no superior, seriously. This is outrageous.

Even men in India are no less, I remember stopping a man on the road who was drunk and was hitting his wife brutally on the main road. Everyone was standing watching, this was at a bus stop. I was what sixteen and I was riding a bike with Pavi sitting behind me. I stopped the bike in front of him and asked him to stop and very calmly told him that I would call in the police. He was so drunk I could tell standing as far away as I was. The poor wife was shivering and cut and weeping and she asked me not to say anything or he’d hit her again. I finally managed to send her home and reported it to the community welfare center.

Even that was countered by the people standing around, they asked me why I interfered in something that was not my business and I laughed. Even back then, I did not have time to answer such atrocious questions.

My mom thinks I am an idealist and I will get into trouble with these things I keep doing, of which this incident was one. I’d much rather be an activist and idealist rather than be a spectator in this madness.

Human rights for heaven’s sake. Men and women, different but equal, who will drill this into every man’s head, living or dead or yet to be born.

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