A father and son are driving home. They are involved in a bad car accident, and are rushed to hospital. Both are in critical condition. A surgeon comes to the Emergency Room to try to save the boy, takes one look at the patient and says, "I can't operate on this boy, he's my son." But the boy's father is lying on a trolley next to him.
What is the surgeon talking about?
This isn't a MENSA riddle but you can take it for one. Because the chances are, only 1 out of every 100 people reading this would know the answer in a snap. The rest would grope in the dark for quite a while before experiencing their 'Eureka!' moment. A few others, the really clueless, would actually give up without ever knowing the truth too.
The answer is actually quite simple. Of course, the surgeon is the boy's mother.
A lot of men who read this story remain flummoxed, tearing their hair out to find the answer. Understandable, thought not acceptable. What is sadder is that a lot of women remain equally lost for a long time. It only goes to show the deep rooted gender bias prevalent in our society.
Most of us, educated, aware, and broad-minded folks, are surprised to realise the vice-like grip of social conditioning on our outlook. I don't think any of us would consciously hold prejudice against a woman. They are most welcome to be whatever they want in our society. I, for one, would personally love to see them work their magic everywhere. Arundathi Roy, Tarala Dalal, Shehnaz Hussain, Aishwarya Rai, Kiren Bedi, Matha Amruthanadamayi, Ekta Kapoor, Barkha Dutt, Sunitha Williams, I love them all.
In fact, I feel they have an advantage over men. An unfair advantage. For example, you wouldn't think twice before telling a persistent salesman to 'sod off!' But if that happens to be a saleswoman, oozing her venusian charm and flashing her picture-perfect smile, you would not be in such a great hurry to 'get on with your life.' It's crappy anyway!
Similarly, the sight of a female nurse is comforting. The sight of a male nurse is confusing. It just doesn't give the same feeling, isn't it? One does not feel 'cared for' in a pair of hairy arms, I suppose. Tasks that require charm and tact have always been a woman's area of expertise. They have been enviously successful behind reception counters, where all kind of people walk-in and ask all kinds of questions, all the time. They have been successful as air-hostesses, where, once again, you got to deal with all kind of people, with all kinds of problems all the time. They have been successful as mothers, wives, lovers... I have nothing against men, but I guess great examples of love are usually mentioned in the context of women.
Contrary to public opinion, I think it is not women taking over men's jobs that's happening in the world today. I think it's women taking back their jobs from men that's happening. If historians and evolution theorists are to be believed, as cavemen, all men had to do was pick up their stone spears and go hunt. Women pretty much managed everything else by themselves.
As we evolved, I guess, so did our envy over women. Our egos couldn't handle the fact that we more or less played a supplier's role in the relationship. We were the handyman around. Our life revolved around her's. She knew how to run the house, how to cook food, how to take care of the babies, how to network and all the fundamental things necessary to exist in a human society. All we knew was to hunt - fling rocks at fleeing animals and kill them. Which we occasionally enjoyed as an evening sport too. Women were quite happy eating vegetarian fare and that didn't make us any more relevant either. So, technically, we were pretty much dispensible. Until they wanted to eat a non-vegetarian dish or have babies. To put it diplomatically, men were only needed to hunt and to hump.
During one of these bleak afternoons of abject misery, some really smart dude who saw the shape of our future in a women-led society, figured the only way to make our life any better was by making them feel irrelvant. By making them feel small and weak. He thatched the perfect conspiracy - the perfect action plan - do all their work! Of course, apart from delivering babies. Leave them only inconsequential things to do. Invent important things to do like racing, boxing, football, stock market and take over them.
Ever since, our good women have been relegated to the backdrop, with nothing much to do, and plenty of free-time on their hands. They discovered that they can keep themselves busy by powdering their noses, polishing their nails, talking about their unfriendly neighbours and discussing how stupid men generally are. Or why would someone give up the luxury of doing nothing for no apparent reason. They are not sitting idle though. They are confused about how these 'life-sustaining-inventions' of their men folk such as football adds anything to life. But all the same, they are not willing to let man out-do them. They are trying hard to beat us at our game. We are trying harder not to let them.
The tussle has been on for years now. So it looks like men rule the world and women are trying to wriggle their way in. But take a real good look and you will see that we are still one up on things that are more or less in the 'entertainment' category when it comes to dealing with life. They still have most 'must-haves-for-sustaining-life' covered. If women ever find this truth, believe me, brother, you and I are history!
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We cannot hide or deny Nature. The inherent woman power is considerable. Maybe hidden and oppressed. But it exists. There are a lot of women folk who can make us look ridiculously small and insufficient. Here are three:
Vandana Shiva has been a leading researcher and activist on biodiversity, conservation and protecting people's right from threats to their livelihoods and the environment.
www.vshiva.net
Ela Bhatt started SEWA, the Self Employment Women's Association, which represents 250,000 self-employeed workers, SEWA runs health and maternity programmes and has set up its own bank. www.sewa.org
Kiran Bedi was the first woman officer in the India Police Service. Since 2003, she has been Civilian Police Advisor in the Dept of Peacekeeping Operations for the UN. She also set up the Indian Vision Foundation to work in the field of prison reform and crime prevention. www.kiranbedi.com
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1 comment:
awsome thought-provoking piece !
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