Do men really hate women? It would seem they do; why else would there be so many cases of aggression against women — rape, acid-throwing, wife-beating, burning for dowry? Short of such crimes, men also get a kick out of scaring a woman. A shaken friend recounts an incident in the car park, when four men in a car drove right up to her, leering and laughing, as she struggled to open her car door with trembling hands. Then, they just drove away, laughing out loud, egos stoked well.
Why would a group of men take pleasure in scaring a woman or torturing her, subjugating her in the worst possible manner? The woman-hating tormentor that came to the fore in the Nirbhaya tragedy can neither be wished away, nor ignored. He now looms large in the mind’s eye — on the streets, driving buses and autos, selling vegetables, or even in the guise of an executive, a teacher, a cop, a CEO or a politician. And he is a scary phenomenon.
Psychoanalysts opine that deep down, men are convinced of a woman’s inferiority, and are traumatised when she seems to hold power over them through her sexuality. The act of sex brings out the worst in men because men fear the sexual power a woman holds over them. A man’s desire and need for a woman, brings with it his dependence on her, and he fears she may reduce the male sense of power and control, which he wields in almost every sphere of life — politics, society, home, office. And so, he sees her as the enemy who must be beaten down, subjugated in order to establish his own sway.
In trying to deal with his distress, it is easy for the man to blame a woman for the bestiality she arouses in him. Hence, you witness policemen, judges, politicians and most other men blaming the victims for rape, acid attacks, harassment or stalking, rather than the male aggressor.
The act of sex itself has the male as aggressor and woman as recipient; it allows the man to keep alive the myth of his superiority and the woman’s subjugation. This is the man’s moment of glory, of power after a day of hits, and as a counsellor admits, a lot of men like to use dirty language and in some cases, even abuses during the act.
Male slang for sex acts and for a woman’s body are all indicative of the need to batter down the woman and establish male power over her. Men bond over boasting about female “conquests” and are appreciatively termed “studs” or “rakes”, while women are embarrassed about their sexuality for fear of being branded “sluts”, “whores” or “easy lays”. See how language has been devised to humiliate women and empower men? I read somewhere that the English language has 220 words, mostly derogatory, for a promiscuous female and only 22 appreciative ones for the male equivalent. Another nugget — while terms like “Master” and “Lord” still retain a respected status, female equivalents such as “Mistress,” “Madam” or “Dame” have acquired derogatory meanings. And guess who has controlled communication historically?
But, why just men? In the woman-hating saga, even women seem to have a gender bias against their own sex. This is sometimes so subtle that you may not even be aware of being prejudiced till the same is pointed out. And this implicit gender bias affects the lives of women all over the world — their standing in society, education, their careers and paychecks— and yes, their very security and existence.
Fresh research from Yale recently proved that scientists ranked candidates lower for competence, hiring or for mentoring, when they thought the applicants were women, and higher when they were given male names. And disturbingly, the biased scientists included men as well as women.
Religion too has played its part in keeping the hatred for women alive with underlying woman-hating motifs, when women who had traditionally been associated with wisdom and fertility, were portrayed as sinners and sexual beings.
Media has played and continues to play a critical role in perpetuating sexist myths. Contemporary Western media is no better, with prominent women like Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin having to deal with their share of sexist name-calling, which is reserved by media only for women politicians. Women are objectified and the frequency of sexist advertisements is dismaying. Movies and television continue to mindlessly portray established conventional stereotypes, further confusing people. Repeated exposure to these stereotypes shapes people’s behaviour.
And so, we need to pay attention to these subtler, everyday prejudices, the little things that lead to the bigger hateful picture. Not all sexism and bias against women is in-the-face. It can be a subconscious discrimination, which many of us may not even be aware of. And till we accept the problem, we cannot work to fix it.
It is love poetry, fervent, sensuous, charged with emotion. But it’s like no other love poetry ever written or sung. For it deals not with the foredoomed love of one mortal for another but with the undying love of the soul which longs for reunion with its Creator from whom it has been separated by the accidental circumstance of matters
Goodness, are we on our way to becoming cynical with regard to matrimonial bliss minus special divine blessing? I hope not. But the number of unhappy, disgruntled couples one comes across does make one wonder. A few years into matrimony, once the initial charm wears off, most start believing they have married the wrong partner. As the march of years weighs one down and the panic of approaching mortality strikes, it is common to list marriage to the ‘wrong’ person as one of life’s biggest regrets. This is the easiest way of externalising all blame for what one perceives as failures of life. It is easy to imagine that you could have achieved more and been a happier person, had you married someone else.
This regret is not unlike the hypothetical thought — “Had I been born richer, wealthier, better looking, I would have done far better in life!” The only difference is that you cannot hold yourself responsible for the facts of your birth, but you have only yourself to congratulate orblame for your choice of a partner.The more choice one has, thegreater the stress and scope for regret and what-ifs. You do not blameparents, siblings or children as being ‘wrong’ for you; since you never got to choose them, you just accept and work around them. But that doesn’t hold true of your spouse. You choose him or her out of many, and so keep wondering all through life, if you did actually end up with the ‘right’ one. And the fact that you wonder, is what causes the problem.
Also, romantic literature and art have infused unhappiness in love with a certain romanticism that seems attractive. So, it is not uncommon to see lovers of literature indulging their romanticism by imagining themselves trapped in marriage with the wrong partner. One such ‘sufferer’ dramatically told me in a conversation, “I am leading a suffocating life, with no ventilator for self-expression.”
However, truthfully, the only cases where we can say one is stuck with a wrong spouse are those of domestic abuse, unhealthy practices such as substance abuse or chronic infidelity. The rest, I believe, can all be overcome.Maudlin self-pity, the resort of the weak and cowardly, keeps us from taking a hard look at ourselves and examining if we really made the effort to do better in life and marriage, or were just content with our lot? Did we even make an effort to make the marriage work, rather than take refuge in declaring we got married to the wrong person? Do we even know who is, or was, the right person to marry? The truth is that there is no such one right person to marry. It is all very romantic to believe in soulmates and the one person God made for you, but the practical truth is that the success of a marriage lies not so much as in marrying the right person, as in adopting the right attitude towards your marriage and partner.
What then is the right attitude that ensures your marriage isn’t wrong? The most important is the sincere intention to make your marriage work. Mutual respect comes a close second, followed by patience and the ability to strike an emotional interdependence and so, form an enduring attachment. It is important to surmount your ego and never stop making efforts to keep up a channel of constant interaction and some shared interest. The important thing to remember is it is never too late, if you make the right effort. You would be surprised; scratch the surface and you may find your partner just as eager to meet you half-way.
It is easy to figure out the health status of a marriage by just watching a couple when they are together or out amongst other people. Indeed, my respect for a man goes up several notches after studying the body language of his wife. Is she confident and fearless as she talks? Does she have an opinion to share? If yes, then she has surely been given due regard and space in her marital home. And if a man is well-groomed and steady, surely he is well-looked after and respected at home.
So either all of us are married ‘wrong’ or all of us are married ‘right’. I tend to believe the latter.
Veysel was a 20th century poet who followed in the tradition of Turkish Sufi poetry which traces its roots back to the 13th century, which produced two great poets and spiritual masters: Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi and Haji Bektash Veli.
At that time, like much of central Asia, the Anatolian region of what is now Turkey was in a state of turmoil. It was an era of wars, crusades, and mass migration. These social and cultural upheavals created a climate of deep-seated instability and a desire to seek an all-embracing order beyond the narrow boundaries of conflicting faith systems. This was the birth of Sufism, a mystical offshoot of Shiite Islam which passionately proclaims the intimate relationship between the worshipper and the Worshipped, the lover and the Beloved. It is a rapturous romance, a whirlwind love marriage that has no need of official sanction, or church, or temple, or mosque, or priest, or any intercessor.
While Rumi and his followers wrote in the court language of Persian for the urban intelligentsia, ‘Baba’ Bektash wrote – or rather sang, like a wandering baul minstrel of Bengal – in Turkish, for rural folk, many of whom were illiterate.
The Bektashi poets exhorted their followers to turn their backs on the organised religion of mosque and maulvi, temple and priest, in a rhapsody of love set to song and music and seek the oneness with the Creator which already exists within us but which the blindfold of ignorance prevents us from seeing.
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“Your beautiful face would not be seen,
This love would never take shape in my breast,
The rose would have no special place
If love and the lover did not exist.”
- Asik Veysel, 20th century
A literally well-versed introduction to Sufism, the poems have been selected with care so as to present an overview of this spiritual school and have been translated – or rather transcreated – to retain, as much as possible, the emotional intensity and rhythmic cadences of the original.
“The Sufi way is to die a thousand times.
and return to life each moment…
They say it is to surrender
your soul to the Beloved –
The Sufi way is to become
the soul of your Beloved.”
Seldom has love, human or divine, been so lovingly expressed. For this is a love which is in love with Love itself.
Love is the key to the ecstasy of the Sufi, the universal love that would bind all of humankind if only we were to free ourselves from the shackles of sects and schisms and recognise this love as nothing more, or less, than the passionate yearning of all beings for the One from which all being springs and to which it longs to return.
Recognising no authority of scripture or ritual, Sufi spiritualism is an impassioned love affair with the Creator, the One, who is more often than not addressed as the Beloved. The tone is always intimate, sometimes indignant, sometimes ironic and jesting. It is like a lover’s quarrel, which lovers seek to make up.
“The pious bow to the niche in the mosque.
I bow at the Beloved’s doorstep…
What of it?
“My enemy says loving beauty is sinful.
I love my Beloved, so I’ll gladly pay that price.
What of it?
“‘They ask Nesimi,
are you and your Beloved getting along?’
Whether we get along or not, my Beloved is mine.
What of it?”
- Nesimi, 15th century.
Branded as heretics by orthodox Islam, several Sufi poets and mystics were tortured and executed. But like all star-crossed lovers, this only made the Sufis even more unswerving in their devotion to their Beloved:
“The wine of this love is a sin, the orthodox think –
The sin is mine, I fill my glass and drink.
What of it?”
- Nesimi, 15th century.
As befits those addressing their Loved One, the poet’s tone is often taunting and teasing:
“You made rivers run without legs or feet.
The ground without foundation, the sky without pillars,
You made them stand, just like that.
Are you a prize-winning engineer?”
- Azmi, 16th century.
