Today I have the pleasure of hosting C.Suresh of Life is Like This fame on my space. A self-professed bachelor who excels at self-deprecating humor, Suresh can make the most mundane of happenings seem fun and interesting. He is a versatile blogger who can pen sensitive stories, innovative contest posts and his trademark posts with equal elan. An immensely popular blogger and a published author, Suresh’s blog has something for everyone. Let’s see what he pulls out of his hat for us today!
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In defense of men!
“They come to temples on purpose to rub themselves against women”, said a caustic voice to me in the crowded confines of the Minakshi temple in Madurai. Looking at the 70-year-old crone who was accusing me, I was torn between anger at the slur on my character and anger at the slur on my taste. Before I could find my tongue, she had eeled forward into the crowd, and I heard her voice saying the same thing again at someone else.
Quite probably she used it all the way to get near the sanctum sanctorum. That reminded me of my bus journeys where women had the least compunction about occupying one entire seat each to themselves in the reserved sections while men stood around cheek-by-jowl in Tamil Nadu buses.
“Aha!” you say to yourselves. One more male chauvinist spouting tired old arguments about women falsely accusing men. Now, that was not the point of the exercise here. The point is simply that, whatever planetary differences exist between men and women, there is no difference when it comes to milking the privileges that the social order gives them. If you truly believe that, if Society were matriarchal, women would treat men any better than the bees and ants treat their males, I would advise a hasty retreat from here to avoid serious damage to your circulatory system.
“That’s fine. But the social order grants almost all the privileges to men” is probably what those of you who are still around – if any – are saying. Really? I am afraid that such is not the case. This patriarchal system of ours is not entirely a bed of roses for men either. I am here to personally shed anguished tears at how this system is unjust to men.
The sheer injustice of the social order was drilled into me at school. I was interested in learning music but the budget apparently extended only to one person indulging in the arts. Needless to say it was considered unnecessary for a boy to be learning music whereas the girl needed it. So, my sister got allotted the budget. I still blame the social order for the cacophony that emits from my mouth every time I raise my voice in song.
Ever seen the movies of the eighties and checked on the stock figures of fun? One of the more prominent of them is the man who does the household work – and, somehow, the depiction is always around his washing his wife’s sari. Just imagine the men of those days – with working wives – who had chosen to help out their spouses around the home. Instead of lolling around in the sofa reading the newspaper and waiting for his wife to get him his coffee and get started on making dinner, the chap opts to do some work around the home …. and earns the contempt of Society at large. The woman may also have earned the contempt at the same time but, at least, she got some surcease from her labors. Tell me – don’t these guys who sacrificed their society-granted privileges (unjust, yes, but still) and still earned only social contempt deserve the applause of all womankind? (Do you say that they did it only because they were unable to refuse their wives or because they needed the wife’s salary? There you go dubbing these men as weaklings much like Society did!)
Take this thing about chastity being applied exclusively to women. Men have a gala time chasing skirts and women are perforce in a sort of purdah – so, all roses for the men, right? When a husband is a known Casanova, all the women cluster around the wronged wife with consolation and sympathy. What if it were a man whose wife cheated on him? Do his folks – men or women – give him a shoulder to cry on and drip sympathy all over his shirt? Not that I can notice. The poor man is a figure of fun – that is all – with some even casting aspersions about his manhood. (And, pray, will someone let me know why this one thing is called manhood?) No wonder men start obsessing about the chastity of their wives. Were it a mere matter of the woman sleeping around it would be one thing but the poor chap has to also become a sort of social pariah or the butt of all jokes.
That, of course, is a mere hypothetical problem for me. What affected me the most was that I could not opt to avoid work. You have no idea how I burned at the injustice of the fact that women could choose not to work while a man who so chooses is labeled a wastrel and treated with contempt. I am single, unemployed and self-sufficient. The people in my life may view it with mild surprise and some may even have contempt for me. Were I to marry a working woman today almost overnight I would be another stock figure of fun – the man who lives off his wife’s earnings – and the object of almost universal contempt. And I am supposed to feel a part of the privileged sex in the current Social order?
Forget about avoiding work totally. A man married to a woman who is around the same level as his in the corporate hierarchy gets involved simultaneously in two rat races. Every time his wife comes home joyously announcing a promotion his heart sinks like a stone instead of sharing her joy. What if her salary had gone beyond his? Even if she does not offer helpful comments like, “You need to network better in office “ and the like, he still has to face a world where even people earning a tenth of what he does somehow feel he is a loser. Thus, in addition to the rat race he runs in office, he also needs to run a race to keep at least marginally ahead of his wife. That is like having a foot each on two treadmills running at different speeds and still keeping your balance.
So, then, these chaps who are willing to put themselves up for social contempt in the cause of a just treatment to women should be, at least, getting applause from women, right? I cannot see evidence of it. I mean, where is the piece where any woman says, “You men – except Ashok who cooks dinner daily and Salim who looks after the kids – have been maltreating women all this while…?” How does it feel to Vishal, who knocks on the door before he enters his wife’s bedroom, to read, “You rape us, you molest us….?” Were it said of any other class of people by any other class of people – under similar circumstances – it would have been called racism or some such thing – but is acceptable when it comes to the ‘Battle of the sexes.’
Now that I have conclusively proved – to my satisfaction – that men suffer as much as women in the current social order, am I suggesting that the social order may as well continue as it is? Not at all! I am only expressing my worry that, as and when women win their point and get their injustices redressed, the injustices against men perpetrated by this same social order may still continue. No man can get an audience to put forth these points – except as a stand-up comedian.
So, will the women please add these injustices against men also to their agenda while they are fighting their cause? I know I have not been extremely diplomatic in putting up my plea but please do not take it out on all males!
Pic courtesy: Freedigitalphotos.net
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