Feminists the world over continue to wage the war to right gender inequities. Several organizations have issued stern warnings and laid strict codes of behaviour towards the fairer sex. One would therefore imagine that the landscape against which the interaction between the two sexes takes place has changed to one of non-threatening, non-sexist, mature behaviour. The truth however is, that nothing can ever change the light in which man perceives woman.
Married or unmarried, what a man first sees in a woman is the overall packaging – the face, the curves, the lines and the promise. And this has nothing to do with the import of western culture or the impact of cinematic, overpowering displays of ‘vulgarity’. And don’t blame it on the figure hugging dress style of youngsters either.
Men have always been like that. Visually reactive, forever on a hormonal high, they cannot help but relate to women on a sexual level. Blame it on testosterone and the need to gather sexual experiences. It is of course another matter that men are always forgiven for sowing their wild oats while the girls they sow them with, get the rough end of the bargain. (View any serial on any channel and you’ll get what I mean. The unrepentant man and the suffering woman!)
Manu, the Hindu law-giver apparently did not deem woman worthy of much honour for he perceived women as sensual creatures inclined to succumb to the ways of the world. Therefore she has a father to protect her in childhood, a husband to protect her in youth and her sons to protect her in old age… “a woman is never fit for independence.” But then came Emmeline Pankhurst and her like, women who fought for women’s suffrage; her victory was felt in a strong ripple across the globe.
Today, a woman’s vote is equal in weight to that of a man’s. But does this prevent anyone from viewing women as sex objects? And let’s be clear on this. What on earth is a sex object? A sex object is one who is valued or is portrayed as having va
Answered by
Parthi
at
12:06 PM on September 17, 2007
