After centuries of oppression, rape, discrimination, forced life sacrifices, murder, assault, sexism, and abuse, you would think that the social status of women in India has improved. But in reality, it remains to be the most dangerous country for women to live in the world.
With urgently important issues such as women being raped and burned alive, and elderly women being raped to show political dominance, issues like casual sexism are overlooked as small sexist comments and jokes seem 'harmless.' Women who stand up against these "lighthearted" comments are labeled as fragile or too sensitive to take a joke. It is then crucial to realize that refusing to stand up against smaller sexist trends and jokes, like a guy being called a player when he has been with multiple people, but a girl being slut-shamed for doing the same. Eventually, in India, casual sexism is being normalized. Women are criticized harshly for every decision they take, while men face lighter social judgment.
India, being a predominantly patriarchal society, has not only induced the idea of men being superior to women into the minds of the people but also encouraged it to such an extent that thousands of women fail to even question their sexist surroundings. India's capital city, New Delhi, is referred to as the "rape capital" of the country; it is a country where about 88 rape cases are reported daily, according to the National Crime Records Bureau’s report in 2019. Women are taught how to dress and stay observant while it is men who should be taught to be respectful. In such situations, people focus on more relevant issues like sexual abuse in educational institutions and domestic violence than misplaced jokes and comments. Patriarchy made it so that when a person says, "you throw like a girl," not only are men harmed but women are also left with the implication of being submissive or secondary to how a man throws. At the end of the day, women tell themselves that, it's just an unimportant comment, which says a lot about how things are. There is a very low setup bar of offense that if someone is sexist, we stay shut as if we are to blame for who we are, for women being women. We are left consoling ourselves that at least they are not a rapist or an abuser. Thus, casual sexism is ignored, if not unnoticed, and shoved under the rug like every important social issue in India.
In an interview done in Haryana, India, a nine-year-old boy said that girls who wear jeans outside provoke men when asked about why the number of rape incidents increases in the city every passing second. Then in Uttar Pradesh, when old men were asked about what punishment rapists should get, they insisted that rape itself is only something that people residing in cities made up. The idea of a woman saying No is utopian to half the people here. With such an uneducated and uninformed population, and such high rates of sexual violence, sexual and domestic abuse against women, sexism here is benevolent and sustained. Think about how casual sexism is, in a country where ministers and supposed leaders blame rape victims in front of an audience of thousands, judges ask rapists to marry their victims, and parents cannot bear the idea of a girl not being able to cook or choosing not to have children.
In a situation like this, you would want to believe that the youth is fighting against sexism, but instead, sexism is as alive and perpetuated as always. While boys who are not allowed to wear skirts, dresses, or makeup because of gender norms are victims of the patriarchy, teenage boys who share inexplicit pictures in their social media group chats are victims of the patriarchy too. This unapologetic, blatant, misogynistic system misshapes the mindset of kids for their entire lives. The boys grow up looking up to their fathers, male peers, and even teachers being sexist openly and think that there are no consequences to their actions, resulting in them yet again believing that women are objects they own. Girls become insecure, bring other women down, and further internalize these stereotypes. It is a vicious cycle, which no matter what gives men the upper hand, ultimately letting women down. While patriarchy makes the lives of men and women worse, feminism benefits both men and women. Feminism is the solution to huge problems like social and beauty standards, gender norms, sexism, misogyny, and rape culture. Feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the political, economic, social equality of the sexes.
Since birth, we have been taught to accept sexist thinking, to believe that there is nothing wrong with it, and to keep shut. By failing to create a mass-based educational movement to teach everyone about feminism, we allow mainstream patriarchal mass media to remain the primary place where folks learn about feminism, and most of what they learn is negative, killing the one hope we had to help us eradicate sexism from the roots.
In India, smoking is just a health hazard for men, but a character card for women. A man is treated normally when he does not want children but a woman is frowned at if she refuses to give birth. Women have to fulfill expectations of what they should look like and how they should act. A woman is reduced to being a birth machine and a housekeeper, all while upholding her husband before anything else, even before herself. These are stereotypes set by the patriarchy in India. Other countries around the world also face different manifestations of patriarchy. But one thing is for sure: We normalize them every day by refusing to stand up against the small jokes, comments, and gestures that are sexist, and where the bigger problems of rape and misogyny start from.
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Cover Photo by Naveed Ahmed on Unsplash
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