Apart from the current Covid-19 epidemic, we need to worry about a lot of things in our country. These issues generally don't receive the worry it deserves:
1. The Privileged Indian Man-
Our patriarchial society has improved a lot but its still patriarchial. Its a well known thing among women across the world that Indian men are probably the most stubborn, hopeless bunch of males you can ever find. They are sweet but the constant pamper throughout their childhood makes them difficult to adapt to a truly equal society. They wont keep their socks properly, they wont remember where stuff is, wont be able to clean and do common household chores. They largely innocently expect their partner to do so as they have no practice.
The psychological pressure towards females in a patriarchy rooted society is terrible. You will still find discussions around whether females should be "allowed" to "work" after marriage. Even if they do "allow", mother-in-laws do not get excited at their bahu's promotion as much they get excited about she making a really good halwa. Being a ghar jamaai is still a taboo. Men do not receive any training in cooking unless they are forced to do so to survive alone.
A lot of working women are naturally expected to take care of home and the baby. A woman in remote urban area does not work 9-5. Her day starts at 7, she feeds the child and prepare them for school, makes breakfast, packs lunch for the couple, rushes to office, face casual sexism, unwarranted romantic advances, has to work extra hard to convince her colleagues she is atleast half of what she is really capable of, rushes back to home, check kids homework, prepares dinner, has to serve her body to her husband at night on bed and then finally sleep for like 5 hours. When these women were asked what do their husbands do when they come back from office, "Well, they watch TV", they said. This needs to stop. The unfair expectations need to stop.
What we shouldn't worry about however: The matriarchial "feminists". People who demand women empowerment but desire special treatment. More than required reservations, calling it "free choice" for literally anything women does.
1. The Privileged Indian Man-
Our patriarchial society has improved a lot but its still patriarchial. Its a well known thing among women across the world that Indian men are probably the most stubborn, hopeless bunch of males you can ever find. They are sweet but the constant pamper throughout their childhood makes them difficult to adapt to a truly equal society. They wont keep their socks properly, they wont remember where stuff is, wont be able to clean and do common household chores. They largely innocently expect their partner to do so as they have no practice.
The psychological pressure towards females in a patriarchy rooted society is terrible. You will still find discussions around whether females should be "allowed" to "work" after marriage. Even if they do "allow", mother-in-laws do not get excited at their bahu's promotion as much they get excited about she making a really good halwa. Being a ghar jamaai is still a taboo. Men do not receive any training in cooking unless they are forced to do so to survive alone.
A lot of working women are naturally expected to take care of home and the baby. A woman in remote urban area does not work 9-5. Her day starts at 7, she feeds the child and prepare them for school, makes breakfast, packs lunch for the couple, rushes to office, face casual sexism, unwarranted romantic advances, has to work extra hard to convince her colleagues she is atleast half of what she is really capable of, rushes back to home, check kids homework, prepares dinner, has to serve her body to her husband at night on bed and then finally sleep for like 5 hours. When these women were asked what do their husbands do when they come back from office, "Well, they watch TV", they said. This needs to stop. The unfair expectations need to stop.
What we shouldn't worry about however: The matriarchial "feminists". People who demand women empowerment but desire special treatment. More than required reservations, calling it "free choice" for literally anything women does.
Note: If a man is cooking food in kitchen, he is not "helping" his wife, he is just cooking food in the kitchen.
Also Note (in reference to free metro rides for all women in Delhi):
We need to fight the sexism together both directed towards males, females and all other genders alike.
2. Still not being comfortable with LGBT-
How many LGBT personalities do you know personally? Are they around you but uncomfortable to say it even after it has become legal? We are still offended by being called as gay in jokes. We are as much homophobic to them in real life as people were 50 years back, just now we love to show off rainbow dps on Facebook without understanding the actual cause but make us have a conversation with a real person and see how panicked and awkard will we sound. Just close your eyes and imagine this, if you find one such person in your class, office , how will you react, how will you converse with them, how will you deal with the situation if they harmlessly flirt with you maybe? How would you approach your friendship? Think about it, its a good start for all of us.
I recently watched an absolutely brilliant movie - Philadelphia. Its a story about a homosexual lawyer working for a firm who gets infected with HIV virus which develops into AIDS. He obviously hides both of the facts from his employers(the movie is from 1993). But soon, the employers come to know about it and fire him out of irrational fear of infection despite him being an excellent lawyer. When he tries to seek legal help from other lawyers, nobody picks his case out of their own fears but a black homophobic lawyer upon seeing him being discriminated in a library gets reminded about racial discrimination he himself faced earlier, decides to help him and eventually overcomes his own homophobia. Its a very beautiful movie about human relationships, our prejudices, our emotions and the tragedy of fate of life.
What we shouldn't worry about however: Stupid teenagers on Tinder calling themselves bisexuals because it sounds cool and rebellious but are still virgin yet.
Note:
Also Note:
3. Social Media addiction-
I wrote an entire article on the subject. According to a research, an average Indian spends about 2.4 hours everyday on social media. Its a hell lot of time. The addictive behavioural patterns of social media usage have crossed crazy levels long back and its increasing generation by generation. The coming generations, I fear will be more impatient, will have more dopamine tolerance levels(need pleasure activities always) and add to the increasing competitive pressure of surviving in the world where "easy" jobs are already being lost to machines. More and more people are suffering from depressive hedonia, it has heavy links to depressions and all other kinds of mental illnesses. We distract ourselves through our phones instead of facing our lives and do what's necessary, aren't we?
Note: Recall this, how many times whenever you were thinking about some challenging situation, you checked your phone? How many times instead of thinking about your real problem, you just postponed it for the moment and scrolled your feed? Probably a plenty times and worst almost always. Another big problem is, reduced ability to interact in real life. Well, online you have your control. You can choose to text later after coming with a clever reply. You can choose not to respond. You do not have to face the other person and deal with well,
4. Whatsapp Rumors-
Well, its true that Facebook and Whatsapp have taken many steps to reduce spread of baseless rumors especially inciting violence and rage, but they still popup again and again through obnoxious ways. The nationalist people have their own agenda, Pandeyji is still very much convinced that every Muslim in India is either involved in Jihad or Love Jihad, Modiji was sent from heaven and was only born to one day become PM of India, Statue of Unity has eyes fitted with high range cameras so that we can monitor Pakistan and on and on.
They might seem harmless but look how polarised our current debates have become. Look how the tables turn when anything even remotely related to nation's interests is come to a discussion, it leads to you being a patriot or an anti-nationalist. I am a firm believer that online groups and content play a huge role in this - yes people already have these ugly sentiments inside them but they are largely aggravated on from these "influencers" on Youtube and Whatsapp.
Note: I just received a whatsapp forward that Corona Virus can be transferred through internet also so please sanitise your hands before moving onto my other blog posts, I dont want any risks okay?
Also Note: Stop watching videos who pick up on your rage(not necessarily religion) and presents angst and temper as "content". Now.
Thats't it folks, have a nice day!
0 comments:
Post a Comment