The End of Romance: Lessons in Patriarchy, Feminism, Rights and Privileges

Author

Section I

CHAPTER 1

The ways of our lives

The Mumbai local

A mid-teen boy raced to catch a moving train but got into the ladies’ compartment. He was carrying a torn bag and had probably come from Bihar or UP to seek employment. The moment his feet landed on the floor of the running train, a couple of ladies shouted, ‘Get down, this is ladies!’ By the time he could gather his balance and pay attention, the train had gathered momentum.

A lady walked up to him and shouted at him. The kid was first confused but then understood quickly. Two more women joined the first one, demanding that he get out. He looked out to jump, but his legs appeared unwilling: the innate fear of death was stopping him. Then the women started pushing him. He was holding on to his bag and pulling away from the door. Finally, the ladies succeeded.

I saw him land. He rolled a few times, and after settling he looked up. He was alive. The ladies threw his bag out after pushing him. The train was either not as fast as I had thought, or the boy was just lucky.

Though everyone from the men’s compartment watched, no one said anything. Maybe because the boy was poor. Maybe, the mistake was so outrageous that the ladies could not wait till the next station—Masjid—that was barely a kilometre away. Mumbai people are the nicest in the world, so I have not been able to explain this to myself. I guess it was an entitlement of women of some sort. Technically, the boy was wrong, so, who would defend him anyway?

I realised that common courtesy, generosity, and humanity had given way to entitlement.

*****

The streets of Bangalore

From the second floor of my favourite coffee place, I can witness the goings-on at the Bangalore’s busy Sony signal.

A courier boy stopped his motorcycle about twenty feet after the intersection. He was making a call, possibly to confirm if he could make the delivery. A few moments later, a woman turned into the same street, but could not manoeuvre her scooter, and hit the delivery-boy’s motorcycle. She fell down, together with the scooter. He too lost his balance with the impact, and his heavy bag fell down with his motorcycle.

The woman shouted at him, possibly due to embarrassment or nervousness. He came around to help lift her scooter. A few people had gathered and some of them shouted at him. He kept insisting that he was just standing there and did nothing wrong. One of the members of the crowd soon held him by his collar. The moment the boy raised his voice to protest, he was pushed harder, and later hurled to the ground, tearing his shirt in the process.

The woman was helped by other men and women as she checked for any scratches. She did not, however, intervene to stop the crowd from hurting the boy. After the woman drove away, the crowd dispersed. The boy continued sitting on the sidewalk staring at the sky and the ongoing traffic.

These boys often work fifteen-hour days to feed their families, and I hoped he would save enough to buy another shirt.

*****

The Kolkata bus

I was in Kolkata during 1986 for my summer training. On the city bus that I was travelling, an old man from a village boarded and found an aisle seat in the second row. A couple of stops later, two women got in. They were carrying books, so I assumed they were college students.

The moment they entered, they walked up to the old man and stared at him. He did not say or do anything and kept looking straight. Then one of the girls said ‘Hey’, and poked him softly. He then showed his ticket, possibly thinking they were ticket checkers. The women got furious and shouted at him: ‘What is wrong with you. First, you are sitting in women’s seat and then you are just staring.’ The angry women nudged him. Confused, the old man stepped out of his seat and walked towards the front, with the help of his bamboo stick, and sat on the floor near the engine.

In the world that I was familiar with, an old person was always given a preference. But in the new world, a twenty-year-old woman is considered weaker than a seventy-year-old man. The man from the village did not understand urban politics.

Since I too was from a village, I too attributed this to an urban culture of upscale people.

*****

Enforcing a deadline

The unruly crowd at the campus was unmanageable as the college results were not declared on time. The VC was asking for twice the regular amount to put his signature on the results paper.

One girl from the crowd came out and threatened, ‘Agar do din mein result nahin aaya to rape lagwa denge.’ Afraid of the imminent rape charge, the male members of the management team fled the campus. The VC was bribed suitably, and the results were posted by the deadline given by the rape-charge girl.

*****

Such is life.

Have you seen a girl deliver the morning newspaper?

These stereotypes develop because of the statistics of observations.

Women’s privileges and men’s responsibilities compete for space in today’s social and political debates. The equilibrium of the modern society is disturbed today as two genders are often on the opposite sides of the debate.

From delivering the newspaper to serving tea in chai shops, or washing utensils in restaurants, young boys are exposed to harsh working conditions from childhood. They also drop out of school to support the family by earning.

Cleaning the sewer pipes, fixing the clogged bathrooms, carrying heavy bags on their backs at the warehouses, working as coolies on railways stations, driving taxis, ploughing—none of these jobs require the additional 10% strength that an average man possesses compared to a woman.

Electricians, car mechanics, plumbers, or painters are also almost always men—in fact, it is hard to imagine a woman electrician or a mechanic. These stereotypes develop because of the statistics of observations and experiences. If you remember, Marisa Tomei’s character in the American film, My Cousin Vinny, became iconic because of her knowledge of the mechanics of cars.

So, who does more: man or a woman? Who should get paid more? Why must she cook and why must he drive? Who should pay for dinner and who should make the bed? The list of gender-based roles and stereotypes is unending.

What is this book about?

Some consider these privileges a reparation to women or a punishment to men for discriminations that women of earlier generations may have experienced.

Differences in men and women are not just the physical and physiological, but also behavioural and attitudinal. Two genders made by nature coexisted comfortably forever, till about a few hundred years ago when men and women started identifying themselves differently.¹ These identities started hardening over time and today they appear to be a different species in many situations.

Due to religious wars in the recent centuries, women became a part of the booty for the winners. This practice spread from Europe and the Middle East to most parts of the world.

Two regular individuals made by nature to complement each other in reproduction became two different personalities for reasons not supported by nature. The economic empowerment of women, their role in the family, and man-woman relationship dynamics changed. Women in many parts of the world became subservient to men, in particular in Europe, Americas, and the Middle East.

Today, many women wish to have equal rights, equal opportunities, and equal access to the resources of the country. While only a few disagree with this wish, there are overriding cultural elements that often prevent women from asserting such an equality. At the same time, there are many women groups that wish to punish today’s men for discrimination against women in the past by their ancestors.

Each country has its own history and its own story of the man-woman power relations. Religion has had the biggest influence, and today it also depends considerably on the economic situation of the communities.

We will discuss patriarchy, feminism, privileges, misandry, rights, laws, corruption, exploitation, and man-versus-woman power dynamics. We will also discuss the natural, cultural, and religious influences on the man-woman relationship, and the way today’s society has come about. Later we will discuss the anti-men stance of our societies, promoted by a select group of influential women and the reasons men are likely to distance themselves from women in many walks of life.

Pro-women and anti-men

Almost all men would be in prison, including the prison director, had all women decided to take advantage of laws.

To appease some women groups and to compensate for a possible backwardness in some areas of employable skills, several governments have been giving special privileges to women. I have described some of these privileges of Indian women in chapter 8.

Countries that believe in the equality of genders establish laws to ensure that women are not discriminated against. Western countries have succeeded to a large extent in fighting discrimination against women by setting suitable laws.

More than discrimination against women, many of these countries have also been discriminating based on the race for centuries, and are working on a parity on that front as well. Now the slaves that they brought from Africa have equal constitutional rights. Europe and North America have been the most discriminatory in the world, however, during the last fifty years, they have succeeded in institutionalising laws that ensure equality. Mindsets are also changing but the pace is possibly a bit slower.

The Indian legal system, however, specifically highlights that in a man-woman conflict, laws will side with the woman. These laws have caused considerable distortions in the man-woman relationship.

Guilty men and innocent women

According to the Indian National Crime Records Bureau data of 2014,² 74% of the molestation cases, 76% of the rape cases, and 97% of dowry harassment cases were fake.

In the cases above, women had accused men of a crime but after investigation and court hearings, men were declared to have not committed the crime. Separately, about two-thirds³ of all the prisoners have not been proven guilty. In other words, they are getting punished even before a guilt is established.

Do pay attention to the crimes descriptions in the NCRB report; here are a few examples:

Laws often fail to protect the female victims where needed and punish innocent males instead.

– Item 22: Assault on women with an ‘intent’ to outrage her modesty

– Item 23: ‘Insult’ to the ‘modesty’ of women

– Item 24: ‘Cruelty’ by the husband or his relatives

The first observation is that the terms such as ‘attempts’, ‘intentions’ and ‘modesty’ are hard to define, measure, and disprove. Even the word ‘cruelty’ has a wide definition and is subject to an interpretation. Therefore, women, law-enforcement agents, lawyers, and judges are presented with practically an infinite set of options for declaring any act a crime.

A boy born today is expected to pay for presumed inequality in the earlier centuries.

The second observation is the specific reference to the husband and his relatives. Crime is defined as the harmful acts performed by the men to women. Men will be punished but a woman will be not, for the same set of acts. This is an institutional bias against men. By declaring women innocent in conflicts with men, and holding the men guilty, we are criminalising hundreds of millions of well-meaning and well-behaved men.

In chapter 10, titled, ‘What should a man do, then?’ I talk about the ways men should protect themselves during interactions with women.

The laws against domestic violence are defined as the violence committed by men only, not by women. We will study the significance and extent of the domestic violence committed by women that often far exceeds those by men in chapter 8. In chapter 7, I have compiled a list of abuses by the wives that laws generally do not recognise.

Laws assume that society needs to protect women from men, but it essentially frees women to attack men. We will discuss more in the later chapters, establishing that attacks on men by women are about the same in frequency and extent as attacks on women by men.

The victims of neglect

The following data highlights the plight of men that are institutionally ignored. In chapter 8, I will discuss more about women’s privileges.

If, according to the laws, men are indeed so bad, then shouldn’t laws prevent women from every interaction with men, including marriage?

– 39% of boys drop out of school in India compared⁴ to 33% of girls.

– Of all the children raped in India, 57% are boys.⁵

– Men commit suicide about four times more than women.⁶

– 84% of all homeless persons are men.⁷

– Men are 79% of the homicide victims.⁸

– 40% of domestic abuse victims are men.⁹

– For the same crime, 163% of men serve in prison compared to women.¹⁰

– 29% of men are victims of domestic violence.¹¹ Women, 36%.

– India ranks third in the world for the beating¹² of husbands by their wives.

– Every 9 minutes a married man kills himself because of the tortures meted out by his wife.¹³

– A married Indian man is twice as likely to commit suicide than a married woman.¹⁴

‘Of all the rape cases that are registered, only 1% is genuine,’ says Vinay Sharma, who regularly defends men accused of rape in Delhi. ‘The rest are either registered to take revenge or to take advantage of the person in some financial matter,’ reports the BBC.¹⁵

The Delhi Council of Women also studied the rape data to conclude¹⁶ that in 53% of the cases of rape charges, the complainant accused the defendant of rape for revenge, and this was not related to any sexual crime. In chapter 12 we will study that the majority of instances of rape relate to elopement, or a break-up in relationships.

Is this book against women?

The lawmakers make laws to win votes. They, however, must assess if they are doing an irreparable damage to the society.

No.

This book analyses the narrative that every man is violent, criminally inclined and punishment-worthy.

In addition, a boy who is born today is supposed to pay for a presumed inequality of the earlier centuries. He is permanently disabled by law and his rights disappear the moment there are any conflicts with a woman.

The lawmakers make laws to win votes from women. They, however, must assess if they are doing an irreparable damage to the society. If these laws stay for another generation, the two sexes will become adversaries and enemies. They will break the society.

Women in India, in my opinion, are overwhelmingly fair and do not appreciate such gender-based punishments. In fact, considering the freedom our laws give to women in punishing men, almost all men would be in prison, including the prison director, if all women took advantage of laws.

Does the society support the weak?

No.

If that were to be so, then the laws would mention ‘weak’, and not ‘woman’. The laws explicitly insist that only a woman will invoke these laws. In fact, it is popular to punish the fathers-in-law, even when they are bedridden.

These laws are also not about societal or economic power—poor men are likely to have significantly lesser power than rich women. In the eyes of the law, a rich woman would still be considered underprivileged and socially weaker.

In addition, a non-English speaker in India is less privileged than an English speaker. Again, laws ignore such an imbalance of power.

It is evident that the laws were designed with an objective to give specific preferences based on gender only. There are similar Indian laws for addressing conflicts between two castes.

CHAPTER 2

The laws of nature

The evolution of the sexes

For millions of years, men and women have coexisted, but as independent entities. Due to the lack of a social structure, every individual had to live and defend on his or her own. When communities formed, rules and laws developed to ensure the sustainability of the societal structure.

Unique cultures developed across the world depending primarily on the nature of the local food, water and temperature conditions. After agriculture became organised, the family structure also evolved. Food, drink, and sex did not have any control of the society till then. There were only few people on the entire earth, so land rights of today were not required. Civilisations always developed next to water sources, so water scarcity was never a challenge. Population in very cold and very hot places were rare, unlike today.

Gender roles were not defined as every individual was a free being. Women bore children from several men and had the responsibility of raising them. This was similar to other mammals who did not have a society.

Over time, a need for co-dependence evolved, and small communities were formed. A concept of marriage was born where one or more females were assigned to one or more males. Due to the lack of any organised enforcement, marriage was a loosely defined structure.

Till a hundred years ago, monogamy was not a legal requirement in most of the world.

Have you seen a horse treat his woman badly?

No.

Nature did not design for one of the genders to rule over the other, or even be superior to the other. Humans too, like other animals, did not have any power hierarchy between the genders.

There may be a hierarchy among species, but there is no hierarchy between the two genders of the same species.

Imagine a world where species are evolving. Can we think of any one particular event or an epoch that would make males more dominant or the females more powerful? No. Men and women roamed around free from any gender-based segregation or oppression. Nature had no reasons to make them differently. Such life forms cannot survive. There may be a hierarchy among the species, but there was no hierarchy between the two genders of the same species.

During the last ten thousand years, an organised form of society developed. Cultures and religions that evolved naturally were in an