Women on Women Crime

[Note: I wrote this as an article for a magazine.]

Is red lipstick too bold for some women? Can a woman be career oriented and a mother? Is a woman hysterical? If not, is she cold? Should a working woman be ‘bossy?’ And the list of such questions, of what a woman should and shouldn’t be, goes on and on. From numerous articles online to morning shows, from cover pages of magazines to YouTube channels, the entire world seems to be concerned with how women ‘should’ act. There is a huge emphasis on trying to be everything all at once. Ironically, women play a huge role in setting standards for what being a ‘woman’ really means when in reality womanhood is a personal and subjective journey.

The oppression of women is not a black-or-white issue. It is complex and sadly has been going on for far too long. The most obvious blame is patriarchy and while that may be true, a lot of discussion needs to be had over the role women play in their own oppression. Kamla Bhasin, a renowned South Asian feminist activist and gender trainer, argued on the Indian TV show Satyamev Jayate that a middle class woman is more likely to brush off domestic abuse and remain quiet about it as opposed to a working woman from the lower-income class of the society. She believes the latter would fight back but the former would consider self a ‘burden,’ as propagated by the norm, and thus wouldn’t want to bring any more light to self. Much discussion has been done on how men collectively need to change their opinion of the role a woman plays in the society, but what about women? If a woman refuses to speak up about the domestic abuse she’s facing, what does that imply? It either means that the society we have created hasn’t made it safe enough for her to speak about it in public or that she feels it would more so be a reflection on herself than the abuser. Bhasin argues that a woman from the working class will probably fight back or scream bloody murder in such a situation. Data collected by Violence Against Women center (VAWnet.org) shows that women from more affluent families have more resources (access to physicians, money to stay at hotels instead of women shelters, etc.) to hide the domestic abuse they face. This implies that either we have associated women who speak up as either something belonging to a lower class or perhaps we have created an environment, as a society, that coerces women from the middle-class to be silent of the abuse they face. This is where we need to, as a society but more so as women, create an environment where speaking up is respected and condoned.

If a woman wishes to get a divorce to escape an abusive relationship, she is blamed for her ‘broken marriage.’ If a woman labels self a ‘feminist,’ countless others make sure the men around them know that even though they do indeed believe in gender equality, they aren’t ‘feminists.’ A Tumblr account titled Women Against Feminism was created that calls all women to share with hand-written signs why women don’t need feminism in this day and age. In 2014, TIME magazine created a poll asking ‘Which word should be banned in 2015?’ and feminism was on the list of words along with words like ‘yaaaass,’ ‘bae,’ ‘kale,’ etc. They did later on apologize for including the word feminism but it did the damage it was supposed to do. Furthermore, women consistently blame others (as apparent in countless ‘morning shows’) over how much make-up is ‘too’ much make-up, over what is considered ‘fashionable’ vs. ‘slutty,’ over how much a woman ‘must’ smile and when she draws the line and becomes promiscuous, and so on. This kind of criticism and rhetoric isn’t something men are doing but what women are doing to other women. And while these may be brushed off as comments from a bored housewife or as women being their ‘typical catty selves,’ we need to analyze the damage they are doing to the perception of women in a grander scheme of things.

It is interesting how women from upper class, who usually appear on such morning shows, are the ones doing so much damage. The women who actually have the power to bring in a change are the ones who are marginalizing women from lower income classes to maintain the little power they have. Ayesha Jalal, a Pakistani historian, calls this the ‘convenience of subservience’ of women in Pakistan in the book Women, Islam, and the State (Women In The Political Economy) edited by Deniz Kandiyoti. She argues that women, who stem from upper-middle class and upper class, tend to be the ones who show least resistance to cultural norms and the perception of women in public arena. Hailing from perhaps a liberal family, they tend to be the ones who aren’t directly affected by extreme chauvinism and patriarchy as a woman coming from a lower-income family would and thus they choose to be subservient to the system to enjoy the few privileges they get over women from the lower income and rural class.

With that all being said, it is important to not ignore the damage certain women rights movements are doing to women either. For example, FEMEN, a women rights movement that originated in Ukraine and now based in France, aims to fight the patriarchy by baring their breasts and protesting topless. Although their intentions are well-founded in trying to win women back the rights to their bodies, their mission automatically claims that a woman who chooses to bare her breasts is courageous and a feminist. That she is liberated from patriarchy and the stigma that comes with showing skin but it ignores the side of feminism that says it is also okay for women to use the very same choice to cover up. By claiming that going around topless equates to women liberation, FEMEN strips the countless women hailing from Muslim countries and other cultures that do cover up by choice off the feminist title. In the end, it does more to aid the sexualized view the society has of women and takes away from the fight of women rights globally.

The fight for women equality will continue for a long time. It is comforting to believe we don’t have much to fight for but the reality is very contradictory. And while much of the blame does lie on patriarchy, on the perception men have of women, it is time we call out women who aid the oppression by their silence or by actively participating in misogynist acts and ideologies.