As women, we are much more than voluptuous sculptures for sexual pleasures. As women, we are more than eye candies. As women, we know we are more than objects used for satisfying a man’s filthy ego. But, is mere knowing that enough?
The other day I was walking down the street of an unruly city of an even more unruly state of India, and I saw myself in an awkward position where a man, possibly the woman’s husband was trying to ‘abuse’ her by touching her noble parts in public. Why I use the word ‘abuse’ here for this couple is because the woman tried to shove off his hands each time he touched them, which means it wasn’t a consensual touch. This man was drunk and in the early hours of the day the woman had no option but to quietly take the piece of shit as an obligation, because apparently, the so-called husband was her only provider. This man was ripping his woman’s dignity apart in front of the world, at the drop of a hat with no sensibility whatsoever. The woman was beautiful in her own right, but what I saw in her eyes was something which I wouldn’t forget all my life. Her eyes were brimming of shame, shame of being a wife, shame of being a mother, shame of being a woman of a man who had supposedly been brought in her life to love her, protect her from social vultures spread around eyeing for their prey. What less could she imagine about her self respect when she knew there were men who in this whole process, were spying on them and perhaps getting the license of abusing her the next time she’d be alone.
I felt a shiver down my spine and a lump in my throat when I saw one of their two daughters (must be 5 years), who, in an attempt to hide this heinous side of her father from her younger sister, 4, was trying to block her view by placing her hand on her sister’s eyes. Yes, she was that mature, or rather an innocent girl who had overgrown her age. I felt sorry for her and I thought of talking to her about her parents so that I could know more about the family. She stayed tight-lipped, perhaps that is what she has been taught to be, or may be she has grown with it to not find this behavior of her father, strange. I kept trying to talk to her and in this process, all I made her say was, “Please go, didi (sister)! My father will see you. He is not a good man”. Caught between two stools, she chooses her father. Sad!
This could be yet another one of the many similar days in this woman’s life when she was mistreated by her husband in public. The little girl could be just one of the millions of daughters who were ashamed of their fathers. This family could be yet another one of the millions that are still miles apart from the awareness on women empowerment programs and policies we have on records. We may be boasting about our progress as a nation, but a huge section of the fairer sex still succumbs to the atrocities by their husbands, their ‘better halves’.
Is the current generation doing enough to enable ‘real’ women emancipation?