I have been hearing people talk about woman v/s man ever since I understood the difference between the masculine and the feminine genders. From the very beginning, I realised that the debate over who is better will never cease to exist. And it is pointless to be even discussing the subject when either of them will decline admitting that they are equal.
However, even when I say they are equal, I am actually not pretty convinced. I had a heated yet interesting debate over the man-woman topic with colleagues of mine and could only beg to disagree with what they had to say - and I wouldn’t mind admitting I disagreed because they were men. Now that doesn’t mean I am a feminist!
The point is, I was actually falling short of ideas and had to pen a blog and was seeking suggestions from my colleagues on the topics I could scribble about. As one of them started throwing ideas at me one after the other, we accidentally halted at the man-woman equation. That sounded pretty i
nteresting to me and I decided to cash-in on the sizzling hot topic.
I revived all my knowledge about the subject - some from my personal life experiences and some from what I have seen and heard.
As I started exploring my memory to dig out instances of common reasons for man-woman conflict, my cranky colleague infuriated my ego by saying – frailty thy name is woman.
All I could say in retaliation was that he was utterly wrong. Nonetheless, the purpose of this blog is not to debate on who is superior or inferior but simply to glorify womanhood. Being the fairer sex, I could only write on what I feel about universal feminism.
I remember my history teacher talking about the existence of a phenomenon called Shakti during the Indus Valley civilization. She taught us about how the men of that era held women in high esteem and addressed them as ‘Shakti’ - as a mark of respect to salute their power to bear a child.
Initially, I refused to agree with my teacher as all I could think of on hearing ‘Shakti’ was Shakti Kapoor! For me Shakti couldn’t be a woman because he was a man!
Eventually as I grew up I realised how silly I could be but started feeling proud of being the “so-called” weaker sex.
I also vividly remember a debate that I had with my train co-passengers while on a trip to Mumbai from Calcutta. Five of us spent the two day journey discussing man-woman status in the society with me and a girl of my age forming a team and my mother, her mother and a 21-year old fellow forming another.
As a teenager I was naïve and so was my teammate. And the two wise ladies from the opponent team along with the young man cited a number of examples to prove that no matter what a woman does, it’s a man’s world at the end of the day!
Not that the mothers felt that the fairer sex is weaker but they did try and make us understand that a woman is a ‘woman’. To make it easier for us to understand what they intended to say, they asked us who would win if there were a fight between a ball of cotton and fire. The answer was fire obviously.
We had no option, but to succumb to the fact that men were stronger, at least physically. But this certainly didn’t mean we believed men were superior.
The idea of treating a woman as the “fairer sex” is not restricted to India alone! Even the west, a land of chivalrous knights, has now become a male dominated arena.
Women are meant to leave their homes post marriage among most communities across the world and are even expected to cook food and take charge of the house. Nowadays, working women are preferred for marital alliances so that they can help their husbands in making ends meet! But at the same time, she is also expected to be a good homemaker, who can switch over to the roles of a wife, a mother, a daughter-in-law, a sister, a daughter and a professional as and when needed.
Though I know that there is no end to this controversial subject, I believe both man and woman have certain distinct duties to perform for it takes two hands to clap. Nonetheless, a woman represents motherhood and mothers are equal to God on earth!
The last sentence is certainly not for atheists…but I am sure those you believe in the presence of the Almighty would definitely agree with me.
