By Fabian Lyngdoh
The Khasis call a normal man ‘u dap-shynrang’ and a normal woman ‘ka bha-kynthei’. U dap-shynrang reflects strength and ability to battle and protect; and ‘ka bha-kynthei’ reflects preciousness, beauty, peace and tranquility. There is difference between normal male and normal female among living beings which also reflects in some religious philosophy. There is difference between Yang and Yin (Taoism), between Mahadev and Satti (Hinduism) and between ‘u Ryngkew’ and ‘ka Ram-ew’ (Khasi). Women are more precious than men in the reproductive process because it depends on the female’s limited capacity to bear off-springs, while male capacity is aplenty. There is a scarcity of the female reproductive capacity compared to that of the male, and therein lies the value of womanhood in society. This is the basic difference between a man and a woman which drives human history.
Today in this era of over- population the intense need for reproduction seems quite irrelevant and hence motherhood is partly on leave. In this over-populated world the issue is not about human reproduction, as when Lot, the Hebrew was compelled in drunkenness to sleep with his own daughters to preserve the lineage. Today, the dignity and freedom of a human person whether male or female is more important than reproduction. The value of sex for reproduction has diminished, but the urge for it is as strong as ever, in both male and female. It has to be controlled and sublimated, and it is here that society should intervene to guide its movement lest it creates havoc. However the higher we climb on the rationality ladder, this instinct is remaining as primitive as ever. It should not unnecessarily be stimulated or instigated or challenged on the pretext of freedom and modernity. It is elusive to reason, to law, or to any human authority because the most we can do is to punish particular persons, but there is no means by which reason can be infused into everybody’s mind. Even a psychiatrist who sets right the mind of others, may lose his own mind under certain circumstance and becomes a psychopath himself, more dangerous than all. Life is uncertain, and common reason cannot account for that. Aggressive, arrogant and exploitative display of female sexuality by the male-dominated corporate world, in connivance with woman’s irresistible urge for freedom may mar the image of all womanhood and derange the mind of ordinary men and turn some of them into cruel predators against innocent victims. Freedom is always accompanied by risks, and the two have a positive correlation. The male-dominated corporate world which enslaves and toys around with female sexuality in the garb of woman’s right has a theme, “money for nothing and chicks for free”(Dire Straits). The glamorous girl on her six inches high heels with scanty dress barely covering her essentials walking the hall way taller than her man, thinks in her vanity that at last now she conquered the patriarch, while the patriarch stands invincible fully covered with a necktie around his neck, nothing seen but his hands and face walking in authority to conquer her again in a new set of corporate patriarchy. The most popular role that girls would aspire in this corporate patriarchy is to parade the ramp to entertain the neo-noble savage and help market his products, of real value, or superfluous. Female beauties are paid to play the role of slave gladiators of the modern industrial arena. The result of all these among the general crowd is that there is a general increase in the psychopathic attitude and behavior among the new generation male, while the public image of the female in general, has degenerated from that of a wife to a mistress, from an honorable and respectable gentle lady to a glamorous sex symbol. Women of the glamorous world carry sexual bombs which can tear the social fabric, and street Romeos carry shot-circuited brains and RDX bomb to complete the destruction.
The so called patriarchal era was not an era of oppression against women, but was an existential circumstance of human society which everybody, men and women could not escape. It was an era when there was a need for every race or tribe to multiply in number for survival. The Jewish rite of circumcision was to leave no man impotent and no woman barren because the Jews thought they have to multiply. That situation set the gender roles of the woman as a wife, a mother and caretaker of the home; and man as the provider, and defender. The woman had to bleed in childbirth, and the man had to bleed in war to increase the tribe and to protect it. Both are honourable and sacrificing roles they had played. So women of this century should not imagine that Sarah suffered as a slave to Abraham, while Sarah herself might be enjoying as a queen at that time. That situation has changed now and there is a need to restructure the roles of men and women according to the present need of the society. Women empowerment is now necessary because reproduction has become partly irrelevant in an over populated world and hence social constraint over the behaviour of women has become irrelevant too except to the extent of mutual desire to maintain the unity of the family, and the general consciousness of working towards the maintenance of the social order. There should be equal opportunity for equal ability. To set an initial balance, purposive effort should be made to bring about greater participation of women in areas of life where they have equal intellectual caliber, to contribute value to society in economy and governance. Being a woman is a physiological category not a backward class social category. But due to inherited discriminatory handicap they have to be considered as a social category to be empowered even through reservation not as a matter of right, but as a stop-gap arrangement until gender justice naturally flows like a stream. However, a woman should not misconceive that to be empowered is to behave like a man or to escape from the natural concerns that men have towards women. This world is full of danger, hardships, and calamities. If a ship like the Titanic sinks, almost all the men would propose to save the women and children first. Rarely would there be a woman who would propose that men and children should first go into the safety boats and women later. If any director should direct his film to be acted that way, no one, either man or woman would ever want to see it because it is not normal. It would be abnormal in the social context as well as in the emotional and sentimental context. The responsibility of a male to protect the female is enshrined in the universal psyche and also in animals’ instincts. So the social roles of men and women can never be the same. But gender roles should not be viewed as contrary or hierarchy in nature, but complementary to each other.
The present concept of woman’s freedom and security even to the extent of believing that a woman does not need man’s assistance to survive the odds of life, is based on the assumption of the stability of the global economic order, the global political order, the natural environment; the reliability of the global information system; the stability and safety of the scientific and technological know-how; and the rationality of the human mind. The first thing we should be aware of is that rationality of the human mind itself depends on the stability of the above factors, otherwise, like at the time of the persecution of the Jews, mothers would kill and eat the flesh of their daughters and offer it to others too. The present seemingly peaceful social order rests on the balance of threats, not on the balance of 21st century enlightenment. The hammer of nuclear blast is cocked, and it is only the trigger that is on negotiations. So if the above factors of modern existence collapse, or say, if a third world war rages uncontrollably, every woman would give a damn to her freedom and stick to the man she loves and honours for safety and comfort; and every man would forego gender competition and stretch out his arms to protect the woman he loves and adores.
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