You Hypocrite Men– my fellow, my brethren!

The Delhi incident of murder of a woman by her boyfriend a few days ago might have horrified many, but it did not surprise me at all, to be very honest. Rather I was quite surprised at those who were baffled by the bestiality shown by the boyfriend in chopping the girl’s body into pieces after strangulating her to death. Now, the media have been trying to add religious colour to this incident as always and trying to drag the matter out of context, leading us to a pervasive distraction. But this incident cannot be considered as an example of how brutal men of certain community can be, as it is being hinted by certain media channels. In fact, if we inspect such incidents impartially, eradicating all our biasness from our mind, it can be conspicuously seen that such incidents are nothing but a dire consequence of our society’s collective masculine mentality. Although the impact of religion on the foundation of this mentality is undeniable, we cannot say that religion alone is responsible for it. The predominant religions in our society – Hinduism and Islam – are misogynistic with varying degrees and they authorize men to undermine women’s potential in order to hold on to their superiority. Nevertheless, religion alone cannot be held accountable for this. 

We live in a society where hyper masculinity is applauded and celebrated by all, even by women. In every aspect of our life, men are expected to flaunt their masculine superiority, be it in a duel between two teenage boys or in courting a woman. This hyper masculine mentality is inculcated within us since our childhood: stories, legends, films, all contribute to the building of a person’s hyper masculinity some way or another. In all these medium of story-telling, the valour and heroism of men is blatantly celebrated and we all blindly appreciate and try to emulate them in our life. Men love to watch their favourite heroes fighting and exterminating their enemies on the screen as much as women love to see their gallantness in expressing their love to the heroines. But both fail to notice the hyper-masculinity woven in the male figure’s character as well as the fake feminine frivolity shown in the heroine’s character. When women think themselves to be Cinderella and men think themselves to be the prince who will use all his masculine powers to save his delicately beautiful and physically incompetent Cinderella from all her calamities, then women must suffer somewhere down the line, when the fairytale will be over. Unfortunately, in most of our stories – both visual and written – this same pattern is followed to feed our general masculine mentality which seconds the idea that men are the saviour, protector, fosterer, and the master of women. Why I am only pointing out the stories here is that we fantasize those characters of the stories to be our companion and find suchlike qualities while choosing our companions in life - at least as far as "romantic love" is concerned.

So when a person, loaded with such harmful masculine mentality, murders a woman in such an awe-inspiring manner, it should not be an unexpected phenomenon in any way. Such incidents come to appal us for a miniscule period of time and then go to our oblivion without evoking any urge within us to take some serious action so as to stop this brutality towards women. It is just because the barbarity was beyond our imagination in this incident and because it was a case of inter-faith relationship as well, that it captured media’s attention, but oppression of women are an everyday phenomenon in our surroundings, we all know that very well. Of course, you can say what you can alone do about it, but we can change our thinking and take actions to mend the ways pernicious to women in our respective life, if we are unable at all to change the collective mentality of our society altogether. But we will not do that because we would rather treat women as a commodity and use them at our convenience than lose our authority over them. We know how hypocrite we are to the core. We show our fake sympathies for the female victims, when incidents of rape, murder, molestation etc. (which is a normalcy in our society) are drawn to our notice on T.V. or social media, as it does not bewray our own misdoings towards women, but our accusing finger always points to women, when similar incidents happen in our surroundings or in our life. Since the collective mentality is in men’s support, we can indulge in such sinister hypocrisy, but how long can we go on like this before women rise up in revolt like the way they did in Iran? 

Speaking of the revolt of Irianian women, it was quite becoming of the Indian Muslim men to not raise their voice in solidarity with them. The Hijab-incident in Karnataka had shaken the sentiments of the entire Muslim community in India because the Government was depriving Muslim women of their right to wear hijab at school premises. During that incident, I noticed a surge of support came from the Muslim men for the girls and they were crying their heart out for women’s right to wear hijab of their own accord at all places. However, now that the Iranian women have risen in revolt against their government’s imposition of hijab upon them, I have not seen those men shouting out for the Iranian Women. If they were so worried of women’s right here in India, aren’t the Iranian women fighting for the same cause? Well, they might argue that it is none of their concern since it is a matter of foreign country, but if that is so, they must not create any hubbub in India when Israel attack Palestine or when Uyghur Muslims are massacred in China. This double-standardness shows the hypocrite masculine mentality of our society and such mentality exists in all religion, all strata of our society. A Hindu man is least bothered about a Hindu woman being raped or killed as well as a muslim man has little concern for a muslim woman being raped or murdered, because women are the casualties in either case. They only create ruckus if any woman of their respective community is assaulted by a man or men of other communities, and that too not because of any sympathy for the woman but because it insults their collective masculine conscience.

~Imran