Gender discourse is a serious thing. It upsets, annoys and angers a lot of people. Personally, I am not a bra burner. I could be called a post -feminist feminist, someone who is conscious of the discourse and the bias but does not believe in “if he can do it well, I can do it better”. I generally see men as people, just the same way as I see women. Their sex is unimportant to me (except if they’re Hugh Jackman) which is why I find it very painful to see men pulverizing the reputation of women wantonly.
The arena of popular culture offers great insights into gender and how society perceives and parenthesizes the sexes. I am not a big fan of reality shows. Being an intensely private person, I find obsessive intrusions into people’s homes and lives too voyeuristic. However, I’ve watched a few episodes of Big Boss this season. I’m not a big fan but I am a habitual channel mover so I get to see bits and bobs of everything on the telly. I have had the unfortunate chance of seeing exactly those episodes which confirmed my belief that one of the easiest things for men to do when they are fighting with women is to cast aspersions on their character and motives, to demean them and to threaten them with consequences. There’s a man called Sky who is supposed to be a TV actor. I’m not sure how he could have navigated his way in the entertainment world with a name like that but who am I to smirk! He was embroiled in a nasty fight with a woman called Mehak. I don’t know what the fight was about but what I do remember distinctly is this man telling her that he knew who she was, what sort of family she came from, what all she had done to get here, how he knows people she also knows and that he’ll sort her out when she meets him outside! Then,there is a baby face guy called Sid. I don’t know what his claim to fame is but he was in a fight with a woman called Vida. Once again, the reason for the fight eludes me but what stayed with me was how he called her names, insulted her, cast aspersions on her character and called her a hag. The common theme in all these episodes is the ability of men to get away by saying the meanest, cheapest and most derogatory of things and to cast accusations and aspersions at will. They now have a porn star in the house. She seems like lovely person and, ironically, the least vulgar member of the house! Were Sky and Sid to know of her true identity, I can only imagine the things they could say to her and perhaps with a sense of license! Can a game not be won by staying within the realms of propriety? These very men became combustible when a woman questioned their family values and how they were brought up. So if it is good for the goose to hear, should the gander not have the same stomach?
I’ve often butted heads with dear friends who have a strange belief that film actresses have all had to sleep with someone to get to the top. This argument almost always gets me labeled naïve and out of touch with reality while the opposing camp thinks they’ve come out as worldly wise. I have a big problem with this argument on three levels. One, as long as there is no rape involved, sex between two consenting adults should not be anybody’s bloody business, least of all of those of us who are merely consumers of art. Two, how do these people know about the sex life of actresses who they’ve never met, most likely will never meet and definitely do not know? And lastly, what sort of world have they come to believe this is where successful women definitely must have slept with someone to get to the top!
I climbed the corporate ladder very successfully and quickly in the first few years of my working life. Interestingly, for most part of that period, my boss was a woman who taught me so much that I remain grateful to the day. I remember being shocked at hearing a senior colleagues talk about how a General Manger of one of our vendor’s had become really powerful all because she was sleeping with the owner of the company. I remember going to my boss and telling her how glad I was that I would never be accused of sleeping with her to account for whatever little successes I had encountered! This was my first introduction to how this ugly notion makes its way into office spaces. In one of my recent work places, it shocked me to see people speaking freely of a male Vice President and one of his female team members who couldn’t be faulted for anything and continued to get promoted all because she was supposed to be his girlfriend. It continued to baffle me how people reached that conclusion, maybe because the two people in question spent a lot of time together due to work, car pooled often, ate lunch together almost every day and travelled together for work. Surely, all this must mean that they are sleeping with each other! Could it simply be a case of two colleagues, a mentor and a mentee who’ve found a great way of working together and meeting their targets quarter on quarter while others have failed or would that be a flight of fancy?
Bill Clinton was asked why he had that affair with Monica Lewinsky and if I’m not mistaken he said, albeit only when pushed into a corner, because ‘he could”. Many men (and women) will indulge in the worst form of character assassination only because “they can”. People say the most personal and damaging things about others because the other person is not present to offer a defense. Sometimes they say it to their faces. It is far easier to inflict verbal cruelty and abuse under duress than to maintain a dignified argument. Many women have had to face this from their husbands. From being talked down to, to being called incapable, to being told they are bad mothers, to being accused of arrogance if they are doing well. And the mother of all reasons, having the spine and the heart to put up a fight against an injustice! How can meanness be a form of combat? How can vulgarity be acceptable as a tool for success? Why should character assassination be acceptable as a form of water cooler conversation? It should not. Women cannot be raped, burnt, owned, sold, beaten, deprived, starved, prevented, ostracized, whiplashed, stoned, murdered for honor or killed in the womb just because someone “can”.
