Woman as seen by the male elites society: bits of to be your own in eastern society
Why it is so hard for woman just to practice their rights and liberty in eastern society when many things were imposed upon them in the name of tradition and heritage.
“Yet not for a single moment did I have any doubts about my own integrity and honour as a woman. I knew that my profession had been invented by men, and that men were in control of both our worlds, the one on earth, and the one in heaven. That men force women to sell their bodies at a price, and that the lowest paid body is that of a wife. All women are prostitutes of one kind or another.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero
We’ve seen struggles, breaths has been wasted from from those who shout at deaf ears. Policy makers has turn blind eye towards injustices that happened each seconds out there for their own benefit. Cultures has not getting better either, for the eyes of the masses would not be swayed unless something significant pushes them into action.
We’ve seen sorrows, on how the hope of creating a better future and doing whatever we can for the betterment of mankind just crushed beneath the feet of egocentric hegemony. They’re too massive to be disrupted, like a small ripple on the vast water in an ocean, sometimes it does feel helpless to see that what we do goes for naught. in these trying times, we’ve faced by the harsh reality that what massive statue has been erected would be tough to topple.
We came to a future that is a wild card, it could be anything and goes anywhere. A promise for a better world, where everything we’ve learned so far would be worked upon a future full of happiness. Will there be ever hope on this modern society that promises the embarkment from the outdated tradition of the past, or will it be just a renewal of discrimination as a product of perpetual power imbalance?
The problem inside the hegemony
Let’s be honest, eastern society in reality has been so hard towards their female members. Jobs that are so emotionally and physically taxing has been their burden for centuries, and yet unfair rules are imposed towards them as well. It is easy for us male to think that this thing does not concern us, for we are not the ones that have to carry what is it on its aftermath.
What do we see them woman as behind our mind that is not objectifying them? I will not say that the western civilizations has not done the exact same thing in their past or even on this exact moment, but then two wrongs don’t make a right. I’ve conversed with many, and saw quite some numbers of problems that is so innate and deeply rooted inside our society, it is hard to be mend as they treat it like it has been set in stone.
If you ever listen to the mouths out there that spoke of cultural justification towards such behavior, you’ll see that female have little to no control upon their own body. The society has seen them as community’s property, as our communal lifestyle dictates that female is nothing more than a mere symbol and symbolism of what we manage to dominate. Mother earth that we’ve come to exploit, medusa that is cursed for the thing she had done with Poseidon, and I mean even some Christian denomination treats Mother Mary as a mere tool that brought Jesus to the world. We did all that and yet we often fail to give what should be rightfully theirs, our function as a male.
This formula that came from our incompetence is often perpetuated and made into jargon that became a cultural pillar of our society. You might often heard or see some of these nonsense, their variations, or others that serve similar purpose. If they are raped, they’d be seen as a disgrace and shamed for their purity would only be measured by those small membrane they were born with. If they bear no children, they’d be seen as incapable to be what a woman could truly be, a mother. If they do not obey the word of their husband, they are nothing but a rebellious wife that needs to be corrected. We do not own to our mistakes and yet they are the ones who had to pay the price.
Objectification of woman: A sexual object
The problem of men objectifying women and reduce them to the likeness of a property is unnatural, yet this practice has seen the light of day since the first rise of civilization. A daughter or a wife is owned by their father or their husband, and thus reducing the liberty that is practiced by them throughout their days. Woman’s image in this so called patriarchal society amounts less than those of their male counterpart.
Woman must adhere to societal rules laid upon them. They can’t even do, wear, or looks like what they want to be, the society has dictated what they could and could not do. They can’t decide on their own fate, their life story were set in stone when their role calls. Therefore they must obey, lest they will face penalties according to what is considered as rebellious behavior.
The dialogue would be about woman is and woman isn’t. There is little to no room upon how a woman could be as they decide for themselves, the social cost for such behavior is way too high to sacrifice. Their clothing, their way of speaking, the way they move, speak, and behave. A rigid set of rules, unbreakable chain that weigh upon them — yet it was often for naught, blamed and discarded as they writhes.
“A woman is a lock, and a man is the key. A key that unlocked many locks is deemed worthy, and a lock that could be broken by any keys are worthless”. To live in many eastern society, this sentences would sounds familiar if not a daily occurrence, echoed and perpetuated. Those practice raises a problem where woman is seen as a mere object, devoid of will and dignity, a trophy to those willing. That reason is why there are so many woman out there got sexually harassed, catcalled, and abused by those who tried to assert their dominance by preying on those deemed beneath them.
Then they fabricate reasons to justify their immoral actions, amassing their friends to find validations among the male hegemony, finding a popular cause. Reasons such as “their appearances are too inviting”, ‘asking for it”, or “it is within our rights as a male” would be the sledgehammer upon any opposing opinions that differs from them. For such people, it is just between A or B, they are right to do that or they are wrong and devoid of what they can. When they adopt that mindset, it’ll be hard to make them looking at different perspectives where one could humanize and respect woman. In the end, it is really hard to show rainbow over color-blinded person.
Arbitrarily appointing role: “You whole lot woman are a mother”
Ever heard that sentence before? If so, then you are not alone. Eastern cultures view woman as the basis of society, but not in the way that would benefits them. In fact, it might be closer on how millionaires looks upon their factories, one of many building blocks of their legacy. The way many people — most of them are conservatives — look at them not as a human being but more of a “child making and legacy continuing” machine sucks and definitely appalling to see.
Degrading questions such as but not limited only to these questions would also often be heard: “If you don’t want to have children, then what use of that womb of yours?”, “Without children, then who will take care of you when you grow old?”, “Are you too high and mighty to submit your body for the betterment of society?”. Which ultimately topped with the “A woman is a mother, and thus should bear us children”. How did we come to this from what wonders woman actually be — a resilient half of our species that makes everything we all know possible — to degrading behaviors we inflict upon them on daily basis.
The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24 NASB)
Think about it, the phrases which says “a woman should be an obedient creature that they are destined to” that often paired with metaphysical legends that says they were made from men. The myth of Pandora that were made to punish men, Eve that is created from the ribs of Adam, and so on also gave the reason to justify the sorrow inflicted by humanity were stemmed from their disobedience. This is how men shift the blame towards woman instead of acknowledging their guilt according to J. M. Higgins. Then, there is also this hadith that often serves as a sledgehammer of woman participation — mainly in politics — that says “those who entrust their affairs to a woman will never know prosperity” was there in al-Asqalani’s thirteenth volume, where he quotes al-Bukhari’s Sahih as what was said by Fatima Mernissi. The role of woman has thus encroached and undermined, often little to no opinion from them were considered valid.
Woman does biologically able to bear children, but that does not mean it is okay to neglect that there are various factors that needs to be fulfilled in order for a (presumably but not limited to) male and female couple to thrive in having one. Eastern traditions often emphasize the importance of cohesive and solid community, but in this modern age where people lives in the city and barely know their neighbors, it is impossible to rely on others to nurture your newborn baby. Remember that urban society had much to differ from its more antique predecessor in which they had a tight-knit relationship from within their clan, and more so while having equal or more work hours in their respective employment and thus reducing their time to take care of their spawn.
To rely on such archaic norm would result in a new social problem that arise among eastern societies. Discontent that happens from forcing woman to stay at home doing domestic works while halving their income might result in domestic violence. If so they choose to employ their aging elders to nanny the children, it’d also put a burden towards their life as it’d hinder the liberty of that couple’s economy and creating sandwich generation. Mental problems might also form from such situation, which led to unhappiness and overall declining morale of society.
The Reality that is often unseen.
But then we should look at the reality, without being denial on how our injustices had wreak havoc upon the order of things, flipping the truths and gaslighting the social justice efforts. I mean, isn’t it us men who took everything away from women and yet what do we do to repay them with for all their efforts? With us shackling their freedom, their future, and pretty much their everything. How is that sounds fair and orderly, or was that a product from how we misquote and utilize myths and religious sources as a tool for our own convenience?
The reality of things when men force women to lay down their body for the satisfaction of male elites, even made them into literal or allegorical prostitutes is outrageous. When they had to do the bed business, oftentimes it is the woman that had to be hassled with many issues, which oftentimes the result of the male’s negligence as a result of their ignorance. Then when that was done and say that the aforementioned woman get pregnant from the men’s seed, it is them who have to bear the nine months pain of pregnancy and not to mention the excruciating pain of labor. When the baby has been born, the ones who had to do most of the job in raising that children that is both mentally taxing and time-consuming would often be exclusively woman too. Then you know what, they often just cover up all that with smile just to keep us happy despite emotional damages they had to carry.
The infatuation of us towards heritage and customs as a matter of cultural identity of a society do also plays a big role here. When there are thoughts that is directly or indirectly against what had been set in the past (despite of its temporary and adaptive nature) as how many conservatives run the system with archaic models, things would often quickly goes into a form of institutionalized covert tyrannical tradition. Threatened, those ideas which wished for a better conditions would be deemed as an act of transgression, banned, and barred by the notion of “constitution”, “laws”, or “divine orders”. Law is for the living, yet it is dead once it got set in stone in order to solidify the hegemony created by the dynamics of things.
References
Chen, Shu Xin, “The Creation of Female Origin Myth: A Critical Analysis of Gender in the Archaeology of Neolithic China,” Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology: Vol. 22: Iss. 1(2014), accessed from https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/totem/vol22/iss1/4.
Higgins, J.M., “The Myth of Eve : The Temptress” , Journal of the American Academy of Religion,Vol.44,№4(1976),p.642
Mernissi, Fatima, 1987, The Veil and The Male Elite: a feminist interpretation of women’s rights in Islam, trans. Mary Jo Lakeland, New York: Perseus Book Publishing.
Saadawi, Nawal El, 2007, Woman at Point Zero, London: Zed Books.
