Avoid the suggestions in most women’s magazines. Avoid books that promise to ‘empower’. Avoid writings that will help you ‘understand’ men. Mita Kapur argues a case for reading for your pleasure — not for that of the society.
WHEN THE PHONE wakes me up from a delightful nap on a Sunday afternoon, the last thing I want to hear is a journalist requesting a list of books to ‘put’ in her article. What is the article about? Oh, it is an ‘insightful’ story on how reading certain kind of fiction or non-fiction can guide women in handling the men in their relations better – you know, husband, brother, father, son. Could you suggest a list of books women should read, ma’am?
Let me leave that journalist at the end of that phone line – till eternity, if possible — and consider these questions:
Should a woman’s reading choice be circumspect to the boundaries set by social systems and limited to the multiple ‘roles’ she has to play? What about looking at a woman as an individual, as a human being? Can she not just read for her own pleasure? Can she not pick what she wants to read? Is it not more important that women read books that will open out new worlds (real or imaginary) – books that will make them evolve into fine, articulate human beings?
Why is everyone trying to dump down on women?
In retrospect, I realise the journalist was only trying to do her job. She was, in all probability, working on what she thought was a ‘progressive’ story, being self-righteously ‘modern’ in trying to portray women reading. After all, reading is learning and if you read stuff on how to deal with men smartly, you are a smart woman! This was her brand of feminism – a brand that defines a woman’s identity by weighing how successfully she plays the roles the society has ascribed she must enact.
My own view, which I must confess I conveyed to the journalist rather brutally, is that it is not a war where we wrestle power from each other. It is about living a life with a freedom to make choices not governed by dictates like ‘because you are a woman, you must read Grahshobha and because you are a man, you must watch business and political news on TV all the time’.Feminism has waged various battles over years. People imagine a stereotypical image of an angry, man-hating, unattractive woman with hairy armpits, screaming irrationally about imagined insults and leading other ‘closet feminists’ to voice their opinions without identifying with the cause.
It is time to look at it as a liberal humanistic approach. It is not just about women being liberated, but also about liberating men from sexual stereotypes. It is about equal opportunities and positive action. It is about breaking free from prescriptions of sex-appropriate behaviour and self-perceptions. There are set social patterns and norms, which have been fed as a regular diet to women. This has led to ample misrepresentation of the ‘real’ person, not only repressing what women are made up of, but also making them believe they are, for the most part, responsible for only ‘playing’ gender typical roles in life. Any deviation from this norm connotes ‘inadequacy’. If we were to investigate the effects of patriarchy on women, it does show that we are ‘expected’ to be respectfully subservient to ‘rules’ at play. Expressing an opinion that contradicts any such construct immediately labels the woman in question as ‘improper’.
Should not the media and all those who proclaim themselves to be socially egalitarian and sensitive make an effort to consciously grow away from portraying women in the same standardised way? There has to be an effort to construct a consciousness of selfhood and individual identity instead of a focus on how ‘womanly’ women should be, how it is all aimed at suiting the men in their lives.
Be womanly, by all means. Dress yourself up, flaunt what you have, but do it for yourself, not to pamper the male definition of the fluffy feminine. That is exactly what my brand of feminism says – be yourself, the realisation of your own identity based on your self-hood, your being a human being is the essential core of your existence.
I cannot blame that journalist entirely, because the dominant forms of feminised fiction in the 19th and 20th century were moral, didactic, domestic and habitually focused on private, domestic experiences. All discourse on fiction was organised around the concept of the proper and improper feminine – the dangerous other. The journalist possibly grew up on that. She probably felt she was being smart about learning how to ‘handle’, ‘manipulate’ men which was her feminist agenda coming from a very simplistic definition of feminism. She was ultimately talking about the power of manipulating men, but then we do not want the male definition of power handed down to us as a legacy.
A new discourse is possible. It is still a minefield since we have not transcended gender yet. It is still another ‘F’ word. “The misrepresentation of how different the sexes are, which is not supported by the scientific evidence, harms men and women of all ages in many different areas of life,” writes psychologist Janet S Hyde. “The claims can hurt women’s opportunities in the workplace, dissuade couples from trying to resolve conflict and communication problems and cause unnecessary obstacles that hurt children and adolescents’ self-esteem.”
We have had supposedly mature politicians play the sexist game. It reveals how deeply entrenched the social stereotypes are. What if the media did not respond to such comments? It is utopian, but what if some of us actually took a stand and ignored all such references, instead of printing a whole column? And can we think of starting to change mindsets at home?
We have to work towards not retaining the binary divide between men and women. We need not reverse the hierarchy. We are not looking to demean or demolish men. We are looking for a better way of life that liberates us all – men and women.Men cannot be our destination; we are not theirs. They can be companions, lovers, friends, but not the main plot of our lives. We are not looking for subtle manipulative power. We do not want power that is gained to win over men, but the power that comes from logic and choices made by the individual.
If power has to come to us, we need to earn it. Men are not the generous donors of power. We are not eager supplicants. We are moving in an age that demands this way of thinking. Have you ever come across a man doing an article on what books men should read to make their relationships work with their mom, sister, girlfriend and wife? There has always been a sexist approach, and it is pathetic to see women succumbing to it mindlessly.
The Pink Chaddi Campaign in India worked, which is proof there are lots of women out there who want to break out of sexual stereotyping. So why the delay?
Mita Kapur is the CEO of Siyahi, a Jaipur-based literary agency. She can be reached at mita.kapur@gmail.com
