Fueling your Masculine Pride

Yet again media woke you up on the New Year’s Eve and you were forced to witness the darker side of your male antagonist. You protested and expressed your disbelief.  You wanted punishment for all those guilty. I was overwhelmed by your support, truly. You remembered 16^th December 2012 and expressed your concerns and deep thoughts on how to make it a safe place for a woman. You shuddered thinking it could have been one of your sister or daughter and condemned the whole fiasco. I again believed you that you have understood.

It feels so good when I am told I am equal to you. I feel I am on seventh heaven, when you tell me, I can walk shoulder to shoulder with you. I am allowed to study, even pursue higher education, live up to my dreams. Not only that, I have also entered the corporate world beside you, I am winning laurels for the country, have even got into a space shuttle. I am elated, truly I am. I am thankful to my good fortune.

I excelled through college and university, and now I am doing wonders in the corporate world. I have got an opportunity to go abroad and I am excited. However, my excitement is short-lived, I am asked by my family to go overseas after I get married. I had thought my family trusted me, they say they do trust me but not the society. Oh well, how can I argue with that reasoning? For you, it is the visa you wait for, but I have to wait not only for my visa but also for a husband. Sometimes, some of us are more fortunate than rest of us, they get landed in a foreign land without a husband. But my family was right, society do not spare me. I am groped and molested in a crowd if I step outside alone, I am raped and stoned if I step outside with a friend, and I am beaten and burnt alive inside four walls of my own house. I am clueless to where shall I go now?

You get married and you tell everyone you lost your freedom and every one joins in your sense of humor. When I do get married and I say my wings have been clipped, I am asked to hush down. After I get married to you, I cannot even spend the money on my own, which I have earned. I have to ask your permission whenever I want to buy a shirt for my father with my hard earned money. You want my father to gift you a car, you want my parents’ hard earned money to buy you a house and buy you all the household stuffs to start a new life with me. You want my money to run that house too. You want to buy expensive gifts for your mother, brother and others, you would want me to spend but when it comes to buy gifts for my family, you become stringent and you remind me why it is important to save money for our future.

I have to offer my shoulder when you need to cry on. I have to accompany you half through your journey when you are scared to boost your morale and keep you going. But when you burn me alive or beat me into a pulp inside the shut doors, I cannot even shout for help. I am asked to sob and control my tears inside a closed room so that neighbors do not hear me, it will shatter your image of a perfect husband. I am being asked to come to terms with it on my own. I am not allowed to have a confidante and helping hand when I need a shoulder to cry on.

I have to take your permission if I want to go out with friends. But when you want to go out, you would give me lies about meetings and workshops to attend to. I will be questioned if I need to stay some time longer in office. Your work and career are always important and I have to adjust and compromise according to that but even if you want me to earn the money, my career is least of your worries.

In front of my neighbors, relatives and friends, you behave as if you are the most caring and loving husband in the world. Everyone talks highly of you, you are the perfect, ideal spouse one can ever get. But within those four walls, I have to be taught to behave. Some time for sake of your mother, father or sibling, you have to beat me blue and black, drag me through the stairs, and kick me with your brother in tow. And, sometime for sake of your woman friend, colleague or sibling, if I ask you about her. When you talk to your woman friend, it would be like, ‘My wife hates to do dishes, so I am planning to buy her a dish washer” and to that, you get, “Aww, so cute. You are such a wonderful husband, I hope my husband also hears you”.  

I wonder, what cult my father was made of.  I had never seen him beating my mother, at least not in front of my eyes. Was he not Man enough? Where else, you beat me up in front of my own daughter. So that, she also understands from a young and tender age what her future beholds. Why did my father deprive me of that enlightening knowledge? I could have been able to understand it better, when I faced this brutality. You can always say afterwards, you were angry and anger drove you to being a monster and I have to bow my head down and worship you.

When I am broken into pieces, you gloat with satisfaction. My bruised and swollen face fuels your male ego and pride. My battered self-confidence and shattered dignity is your prized possession. When you cut the spirit of a free spirited woman, it definitely fuels your masculine pride and testosterone full manhood. I have seen your face, you are at your inner peace by showing my exact place in your life. And trust me, I am filled with an intense dislike, obviously not for you, I do not have any energy left within me. I hate myself and yes, you have won yet again.