By Robert Clements
Shunting the ‘Ladies Special’ Out..!
They’re all over; buses, trains, cabs, and now, an all- woman police station in Mumbai! Ladies Specials they’re called! Buses, on which only ladies can board, so also trains, designated cabs and a police station with only women police personnel! And each time we create a new ‘special’, we men smile, look at each other with pride, and think we’ve done something special for our women!
What we’re actually doing is putting them in cages.
“We are caging you to protect you!”
“We are taking away your mobile phones to keep you pure!”
“We aren’t sending you to school, to safeguard you!”
A few years ago, my daughter became an anchor for a famous TV channel, a much sought after post. “Dad!” she asked, “Any words of advice?” “Yes!” I told her, “Be a man in a man’s world!”
“A man?” she’d asked, “Why?” “Because to compete,” I’d said looking into her eager eyes, “Don’t get pushed into a ladies special where you are expected to shed tears when upset, scream when angry, show vulnerability when you want something! Be tough just like the men around you and compete on an even keel!”
She did.
I hear about Love Jihad groups roaming the country, out to protect women from one faith against so called wily men of another! Do they really think their women are so stupid, they would fall in love so easily? Or, are they actually unsure of themselves and insecure about keeping and holding their woman’s love? So, what do they do? Put them in a Ladies Special with barbed wired windows!
Ssshhh! I hear the sound of a Ladies Special coming and see a few heads looking out at me, saying, “Stop congratulating us for being the secret behind a successful man, instead start saluting us for being successful ourselves!”
‘Stop telling us we look beautiful! Start telling us it’s our mind, character and strength you admire!”
“Stop praising us for our stereotypical roles in your films as mother, wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, instead celebrate us as individuals, independent of relationships!’
I look inside the Ladies Special and someone inside looks me in the eye and says, “Stop looking at me from a convenient male viewpoint. Let me be imperfect, whimsical, irresponsible, lazy, fierce, opinionated, loud, flabby, ungroomed, adventurous, unpredictable, unprepared and impractical like you Bob, are happy at being!”
There are others around me, and suddenly someone unlocks the cage and asks the ladies to come out. I hear the sound of drums, of music, and as the ladies stream out on the roads and on the platforms, men and the once caged women dance in happy abandon together, the men, respectful in their behavior and women confident in handling anything untoward.
And then together they tow the Ladies Special coach into the backyard of Indian history!
But the ‘Ladies Special’ coach exists also in our religious institutions: Just about a hundred years ago in what was then and is still, the most advanced country in the world; the USA, women couldn’t vote. In so many churches till date, women can’t preach or hold leadership positions! And very often whenever women protest about this rather unseemly unfairness, what is thrown at them is not the Constitution of the Country, but the Bible. “Look,” we shout in holy righteousness as we with revered hands open the Bible to 1st Corinthians, “Look where Paul says you women should be!”
And in words loud and clear as if exorcising a ghost with the Holy Book, we throw, shove and push our women back into the closet, or kitchen while mouthing words like ‘Love Jihad’!
As an aside, the Bible was also used by slave owners to tell slaves they were merely obeying the scriptures about keeping blacks in bondage.
But coming back to womenkind: What did Jesus do? Just imagine, in those ancient times, a man going up to a woman at a lonely well and speaking to her so freely!
I wonder what Paul would have said if he’d been at the scene, “Woman don’t speak back to him so impertinently! He’s a man!”
And when Jesus had his body anointed with costly perfume by Mary, who even used her very hair to tenderly wipe His legs, did Jesus admonish her? Did He draw His legs away quickly? Did He shout, “Get thee behind me Satan?”
No, He didn’t! He loved it!
He accepted her fragrant offering, even though the very hair she used to wipe the oil was what Paul had said should always be covered.
I’m sure there are many who’ll say, “Jesus is God!” Of course He is! But remember, when He lived on earth, He lived a man! So why the difference in what both say about the place a woman occupies? I believe Paul quite often spoke within the framework of local customs, and Jesus addressed people, with a timeless divine view, as His Father saw it.
A Mary Magdalene followed Jesus wherever He went and blasphemous present-day writers who have no idea about the holiness of the Son of Man, have even linked her physically with Him. I am sure Jesus knew this would happen, and yet allowed her to be with Him. Because He knew that there would finally be many who would understand that the Kingdom of Heaven in a true Christian is when we don’t look at each other carnally, but as brothers and sisters in Christ!
I am sure Paul knew this, but as a student of English Literature, I know that a person’s writing reflects the customs of his or her time, and in Paul’s writing we see the same.
Two thousand years have passed and liberation has taken place, “Yes Paul, women can vote and preach!”
Can you feel Jesus smile, even as I whisper to you, “Where do you keep your women, still in a ‘Ladies Special? In a cage or on a stage?”
Shunt that ladies special coach out and allow our women to be as free as the men are..!
The Author conducts an Online Writers and Speakers Course. For more details send a thumbs-up to him on WhatsApp 9892572883.