My Son

My son,
savior, my beginning and end,
dawn of welcome you have
brought to my frail being, long
awaited pardon and eager joy.

Look,
she slept crying, your sister, the
little bundle born with you, an
unsure dream of life, her share of
my milk resounding in your burps.

She
will die, death croons softly to
her, neglect and hunger smile
gently. Sleep, my girl, to your end,
before HIS arms sing their lullaby.

Should I lie that HE loved you?

My son,
she has gone, you live and shall
love, life will carry you forth in its
glory, wrapped in your mother’s
gratitude, saved from HIS arms.
Saved by you.

This one is about men... technically.

There has been an argument that I have often come across- that women have it easy. Women have to just take care of the home and do nothing heavyweight. It is the man’s responsibility to protect the woman even if she is capable of protecting herself. I have encountered this while dealing with some of my friends, completely wonderful male friends who insist on ‘taking care’ of me and some other friends who rant about how they are upset about their wives or girl friends or sisters being somewhere alone. It is like men need to a pair of eyes sub-attached to all the women in their lives.  I have noticed there are certain qualities which are overrated in today’s world and some qualities which are quite ignored and need to be cultivated in today’s man. 

Let us consider chivalry and protectiveness. I dislike immensely when a guy opens the door for me just because I am a woman. True, there are the polite ones who open the door for every person with them. Why offer a seat to a woman when she has two legs which were meant for her to stand with just the same as a guy? Chivalry in the romantic sense of the word makes no sense today. It is not about treating women as if they are fragile creatures, mainly used for decorative purposes. It is not about getting manipulated by a woman who cries on purpose (I have never understood why most men don’t like to see women cry. Perhaps it evokes a sense of incompetence in them, since tears are a measure of unfulfilled needs.). It is certainly not about holding back because the opponent is a woman. If you will react strongly to a man who offended you in the same measure as me, react to me in the same measure, I don’t mind. In this age, chivalry can be accorded to both sexes. Women should be able to say no the perks that society offers them just because they are women and men should stop trying to rescue the damsel in distress. Chivalry should become more equitable in its distribution. It is more about women allowing men to express their emotions without feeling irritated that men should not be sensitive as much as it is about men allowing women to fight the dragon themselves. After all, swords and lances are not made in women-repellant material.

Then there is the responsibility part. In a typical household, where the man is held responsible for the woman, he is the main bread winner of the family. Unless in a household the woman earns more than the man (which is quite rare) or the woman’s career profile is publicly better than the man’s. In either case, ego-conflict is a strong possibility because of the traditional gender cocoons. Decisions are attributed to him because traditionally he has been making them, not because he is more capable of them. Hence bad decisions end up affecting the whole system. This position inevitably puts both power and uninvited responsibility on a person by default of his sex without considering his efficiency. There is a constant pressure to be successful and to take care of his family while the same is not expected of the woman to the same extent. She is however, supposed to keep the family together. The roles can be thus summed up as the negotiating diplomat for the woman and the responsible autocrat for the man. It is like a binary code. There is no half, just either or the other, which automatically puts the gender fluid in a conflict mode because there is no sharing of responsibility. This translates into every man-woman relationship. Sons are responsible for their mothers, brothers for sisters and male friends who make sure you don’t step on the puddle on the road.

Now we come to sensitivity. I remember one of my friends being disgusted at her male friend when he cried in front of her. While sympathy is attributed to the feminine, she experienced disgust instead of sympathy. Men and women are trained to expect no expressiveness from men. If someone dies, they shouldn’t cry, they should bear all the brunt without letting others know their troubles. This system is not fair to either sex. Cautiousness is termed as cowardice.  Boys are taught to be tough, toughness being associated with power and power in turn keeps the status quo. Every single quality absent in a stereotypical man is made so by generations of conditioning, with mothers, wives, sisters and daughters carefully supporting the system which functions as a factory to produce mechanized versions of humanity, which will become ‘his’ story. In a sense, it is this perception of power and the apparent helplessness of the female that leads man to deliberately use aggression against women as a tool to control them. 

  

All in all, we teach our boys not to bend or break, but without giving them an adequate support system. We tell them to be capable and successful, to be strong and unyielding. We teach them that they have to be responsible towards women, to give women what they want (without understanding that the wants are society prescribed.) and when they deviate a bit out of the culturally accepted level of normality, we punish them by taking away their self esteem.  We need drastic deconstruction of what is feminine and what is masculine. We need the individual reconstruct for him/herself. Gender should be a study for both the sexes, not just females. It seems that mostly women are interested in gender roles because women are the oppressed lot. It is as if men take it for granted that gender is something that does not concern them. They hold power. True, if a discussion comes up in a group and somebody asks who among the men care for women’s empowerment; every hand goes up, without knowing why empowerment is needed or that they need to be empowered too. Why do men need to address gender then? Because if they were interested in how gender roles work and how they are limited by them, there is the chance that women and men will become partners in the actual sense, in fighting against  pre-defined gender rules. And that is what we not. Not the polarization that is happening now because of the power shift.