Here's a question. How many times in your life have heard the dialogue "ek aurat hi doosre aurat ka dard samjh sakti hai..." or similar equivalents in other languages, in soaps? The answer, I'm quite sure, is a gazillion. For those who don't really follow the national language, the line literally means "only a woman can understand another woman's woes".
Utter crap.
It would survive only in soaps where actors are too busy looking for reasons to hysterically howl and do justice to that damned bottle of glycerin they emptied into their eyes at the director's insistence ("More, more emotion, I say!").
The truth is most women can't stand each other. There are the exceptions of course.
I know guys really raise their eyebrows and protest when they're told this. ("But you gals have so much fun together!").To you all I say, well there's a lot more going on apart from what you see on the surface.
Simple case in point. I did half my schooling in a strict convent and half of it in a co-ed .The convent emphasized disciplines a fact that's quite understandable given that most parents sent their daughters there to "evolve into ladies". Ahem....yes.
However, I doubt if I learnt anything even remotely lady-like. They tried really hard to make us all cut our nails short, polish our shoes till they sparkled, sit with our knees together and ankles crossed ("A proper lady never displays her underwear!").The result? Most of us ended up becoming rowdy things who very effectively acted demure whenever the Princie was around. What a waste!
We also learnt the womanly art of sarcasm, something no man can ever beat us at.
I carried the knowledge of that spiteful art to co-ed and found I didn't really need it there. Why? Because the girls in co-ed were too busy giggling, blushing and acting coy, all for the benefit of the boys. But the moment a dispute came up, ("why did you smile at him when you KNEW I was trying to flash my dimples at him for the past one hour???"), claws were displayed and the yowling could be heard in the entire corridor.
Then fate tried to put me in an all girl's college (Narrow escape, thanks to Anna). This experience though would have been slightly better since I find my friends (in colleges like LSR) finding the exceptions I mentioned above. However, just like you can't take
I thought it'd all balance out later in life. Ridiculously innocent of me to have thought that.
A woman without some amount of spitefulness is, I suppose, like a bodyguard who cries for his mommy every time he hears a sound. Pointless.
Sue was right. Women just cannot get along with other women.
All the scathing observations apart, given the choice, I'd still be a woman anyway :)
3 comments:
“The truth is most women can’t stand each other.”
What does that make you? The very fact that you chose to write about “other” women in a singularly derogatory manner says something about you.
I see you trying to live up to the myth you have created about women. Your views are your own and as good as they get for you; do not give them a universal quality by using words such as “the truth”.
“People” are the ones who are insecure and not just women. If you try to reduce this insecurity to being a gender-specific streak, then it is a sad attempt at generalisation.
“We also learnt the womanly art of sarcasm …”
Again a generalisation. My critical father saw to it that any attempt at taking initiative to try out something new was killed and left to rot in the bud. But, all men are not created equal.
“But the moment a dispute came up, (“why did you smile at him when you KNEW I was trying to flash my dimples at him for the past one hour???”), claws were displayed and the yowling could be heard in the entire corridor”
Now you are, unknowingly perhaps, revealing why women “seem” to fight. By writing what you have, you reveal that life and many a situations that all of us encounter are one of a power struggle.
It is sold to women that they need to impress men to be in a position of power themselves, as men are the ones who have power — in the form of money, authority, u-name-the-gimmick. Women are made to feel weak and unsure about the choices that they make.
A woman looking for direct power is seen as being aggressive. So, society allows and ratifies structures that support an indirect attempt to gain power. Women are not fighting other women so much on ethical or conceptual differences as they are on the desperate need to hold on to power.
Many women recognise this and opt out of meaningless battles. They create meaning out of their actions and do not recognise or acknowledge centres of power set up by men — and accepted by other women.
(Yes, “people” also have the choice of living peacefully, but peace as the world knows it today is just the absence of war and violence — not an ideal to be achieved in itself)
Asides apart, men, too, try to “mark out their territory” and “claim” for themselves the attention of the opposite sex. And, believe me lady, if you were the recipient of such attention you would be thrilled to the ends of your all-curled-up toes.
I am not going on with the rest of your article to critically analyse it. I disagree with the very premise it is based on.
Some things are age excesses which people are willing to grow out of … if given a chance. You were in your adolescence and so were those women.
My question to you is: What will you do the day you meet a woman who is comfortable with herself and equally comfortable with you? What will happen to your need to feel special vis-à-vis other women? Won’t it still be a truth that most women can’t stand each other?
I should that I am bored with people commenting on your views and ideals.. but what is attributed more to it is your power with the pen lady ! Trust me, its not the pen thats mightier than the sword, but there is one thing else, the pen is like the whip that beats and lashes around the subject to the way to protagonist wants it to move, you lash it, chase it, run over it.. No matter what you do with the world, you still make it to reflect your thoughts and never what it wants to speak for itself, not many can talk like that, I for one.. I can impress people with smart words trust me, but that doesn't get any place. Impress is a light word, where as what u do is hypnotize, if I read your post not once but twice, its only for the strong words of yours that convery emotions of long gone past or unseen future....
I had a glimpse only of your blog, but what a variety of subjects you have chosen - on pasta (I also like for a change, for change only), on Bharathi ( May His Soul bestow you of what all He said in Manathil Urudhi Vendum), and woman's wise cracks (I found another great cat--editor of Filmfare or some such woman's vib. magazine, I forgot--in the making). You will do credit to Enghlish Honours also. Keep it up, but I am on a different world now with Voice of God 7 volumes of Kanchi Paramacharya and could not spare time that much on other interesting things of the world.
Best Wishes, TPS
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