Women’s Place and Sexual Politics!
To start with the definition of this term that might be novel for many is the right thing to do. So in simplest words sexual politics means,
“the differences in the amount of power that male and female people have in a society or group.”
It is a basic thing that we carry out in our daily lives yet we don’t know that we are indeed exploiting ourselves. It is not an uncommon thing for people to worship patriarchy. Especially in Islam where they don’t understand the real meaning and consider that men ought to be in the highest place and so whatever they do is indeed accepted in Islam. In fact, I’ve seen people arguing with others about this topic so often that I thought I should give this controversial yet educational topic a go.
Sexual Politics has a deep effect on the psychology of both males and females. Patriarchy has made its roots so strong in this world that women feel obliged to do as men want. Most of the women in our society give their life control to men willingly without even knowing the consequences of it. And when someone tries to show them the right direction they start bestowing them with titles like “rebel” and whatnot. Let’s take a very very basic example because I cannot stress enough on this fact enough.
I’ve been around a long time (saying it in Damon Salvatore’s voice from The Vampire Diaries) to observe that once two people are married, the male wants his wife to not have enough contact with her male cousins. And mind you I am not talking about male “friends” I am talking about cousins.
And without even a question, they do it. Because they think whatever he decides is the logical right thing. Not to mention he never stops his contact with any of his female cousins. This is not even about trust, it’s just about the rooted patriarchy in us that we must toss out.
A few years ago I had a conversation with a woman in her early fifties about the same topic. And she replied to me in a heartbeat that she would do what her husbands ask her to, and never question him.
See, this gives them power. Because they think that is not oppression that is just how things are bound to be. And when you try to educate these women they reply to you with the lines “Don’t bring this European shit into this ETHNIC Household.”
And it’s not about privilege, it's a basic right, a basic human right that most of us are deprived of. Do not go on and explore new things when you still haven’t been able to rid your system of this systematic patriarchy we all have so much inspiration.
We have so many stereotypes that I want you all to break and some of them are just memes for me. A few examples will be
“Men and intelligent Women are Hardworking”????? I mean hello, do you even think how nonsense it is? I want to know the exact traces of these sentences because whoever said that must be a man himself.
Or that “Men are better at teaching Mathematics.” Trust me I’ve heard this sentence from a female and was like. ???? What do you mean by that? I passed my fourth-semester elementary mathematics (that, btw. was not elementary at all because it had the maths of Fsc Pre Eng) because of my sister. She is a female!!!
or “If my husband says I should not meet my male cousins then I should not.” no, honey. If he says so, ask him the reason and trust me it has everything to do with his jealousy so there won’t be one. And if he still is adamant ask him to do the same. An Eye For An Eye. Yes, ladies, it’d gonna be like that.
He doesn’t like your male friends? Fine, you don’t like his female ones. These are the basics and the issues like not allowing you to do your job etc are things that come so later in life.
It’s like first you need to educate them about the alphabet and then move on to the words and sentences. Because trust me, basic women's rights are a hard pill to swallow, even for some women. And you need to educate yourself first and then the men around you.
Philip Goldberg conducted an experiment that proved the inclination of women towards a man if we have a woman on the other side. Two articles that were exactly identical were shown to the females and all of them voted for the article written by a man. This proves that subconsciously women are fixed with the idea of men being more intelligent and rational than their own gender. (The thing about men being intelligent is universal!!)
Women in our society are trained to vote for men when on the other side is a female standing. We are trained to have our inclination towards males as compared to our own gender when it comes to rational and radical thinking. Literature is filled with examples of glorifying the man while marginalizing the female.
In the United States of America, women may be sanctioned more harshly when their behaviour violates sex-role stereotypes. (Source: US Department of Justice)
Still, in the 21st century, a woman has no rights over her body. This world is filled with states where women are not even allowed to have abortions if their own health is deteriorating and at risk. No religion asks you to give birth to a child when you’re certain you won’t survive. There are a number of countries where a woman is not even allowed to abort the fetus even after the rape and all these laws further prove the kind of patriarchal and sexist society we live in.
A woman needs to be well aware of her rights and should be given equal opportunities as men in our society so that this underlying psychology of women being any less than men can be eradicated. This is why you need to start from the basics, because nobody can learn to spell APPLE when they don’t know how to pronounce the letters separately.
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