Bound feet, mutilated genitalia and clipped wings

Women had to fight a long battle to reach the level of swimsuit and the leisure of swimming. Buried under multiple layers of yards of skirts, great-skirts, bonnets and gloves any attempt to lighten the burden was taken as a sign of doubtful morality. During the Victorian era, the swimwear was more cumbersome than what the modern woman wears in sub-zero temperatures. It was not until some decades back that female swimwear became something of a legitimate leisure activity. Mind you, the man had been doing the same since the conceiving of the so called civilization.

The most powerful country in the world, the United States of America, granted voting rights to the contributors of its development only in 1920. The first semblance of democracy dates back to ancient Greece. In England the roots date a good thousand years back. So the voting right came at least 1000 years late.

Men were flying planes for a good 30 years when the first females cracked the hard shell of cockpit glass and broke though rocky minds to set wings to the flight of their dreams.

Education and intellect, the timeless right of the men, let loose its first showers of knowledge and empowerment on women just during the last fifty years. The history of knowledge and its pursuit date back 3500 years. Even now it’s just in infancy in many parts of the world.

Female genital mutilation, removal of some or all of external genitalia, to tame the so called presumed rampant sexual desires in women. The sexual freedom that man enjoyed, taking it a moral act for him and immoral for her. It was his rightful pleasure and her sin. Now  the chains are breaking. A long battle to go for though, because sex for man is natural. For the woman it is still a scandal.   

In China, for one thousand years they bound women’s feet since early infancy with dozens of feet long strips of clothes to check feet growth. It was for the famed four inch feet, the symbol of docility, tameness and civility, of being gloriously feminine. They bent the toes inwards and tied layers of clothes to crush and break the bones slowly and painfully over the years to keep the feet from growing beyond four inches, the limit after which a woman became almost unacceptable and uncivilized and shameful. Women hopped like unassertive, vulnerable creatures. It was the walk of a willow switch swaying to spring breeze to arouse the men. They wore silken embroidered baby shoes over bound feet. Inside flesh rottened and sores festered. The famed Chinese beauty with bound feet of a baby did service to the patriarchy for 1000 years before the practice stopped in 1920s.

In my state of Haryana, we have 7000 village settlements. In my memory of the last 20 years, there have been 5 honor killings in my village. The girls’ crime was just as simple as pursuing--once in a lifetime--a freedom which any men or boy does every day throughout their lives. They fell in love. Nothing wrong with that. Everybody does. The only difference was that they allowed it to blossom. Survival and chastity meant subduing it the moment it sparked. Otherwise it was an unpardonable sin. The punishment death ordained by society and ignored and looked over by the state. Their sin? They went out with a boy, talked to him, went to some eating point with him, and thus brought this shame to the family. The society would expect hit-back from the disgraced family to salvage honor. And of course they did. A quiet strangulation, a still quieter cremation, and a quietest society. Gone. She earned it, everybody seemed to agree. Taking 5 honor killings per settlement during the last 20 years, the traditional society of Haryana has progressed with the killings of at least 35000 honor killings. Now when I see the freedom enjoyed by boys and girls, enjoying innocent pleasures like talking to each other, going for coffee and burgers and movies, I realize it has been a silent revolution. There are unnamed, unseen martyrs. I count them to be 35000 in my state during the last two decades.

The bloody wheels of exploitation are taking women further to the next milestone in their journey.          

As the human juggernaut moves from brawn to brain, there is an inevitable shift in gender roles. The traditional muscle-dominated bastion of males is melting. It’s more about smartness and management now wherein females are better placed to excel given centuries of biological traits sharpened in managing things despite greatest odds.  

All things go in circles. In the beastly fight to survive in the jungles, we started with an all male dominated scenario. Now we are moving towards parity and equality in gender functions in making a society and driving the economy and pulling the technology. On further progression on the path in the circle, the role of women will overtake that of men. And rightly so. They have earned it. It has been a bloody battle for thousands of years.