Conditioning Conundrum

On the way home from a particularly intense and meaningful session of the Sunday Adda, I hopped on to a bus. Normally, on a Sunday evening at 8ish, I would just take one of the many autorickshaws plying the fixed route between the Adda spot and close-to-home. But, this is durga puja season, and all the Bengalis and their uncles have gone ape-shit crazy. Normally deserted, horror movie setting streets have looked like middle of the day at a busy shopping destination for the last couple of weeks. Traffic, non-existent to the point of scariness under normal circumstances at that hour, has been standstill and crawling it-will-take-forever-to-get-there over the last few weeks. So, not chancing waiting another hour in the insane auto queue, I just jumped into the first bus I saw that was headed in the right direction.

Miracle of miracles! There was a seat! So I parked my more than ample behind, and settled in to ruminate on the fantastic session we had just had talking about male gaze, comfort levels, policing of women's bodies and clothes, movies, books, feminist theories, Freud, Woolf, and SO MUCH more. In the intensely slow crawl to where I was going, many people got into and off the bus, of course, some noticed, some not, in my post adda zen state.

One pair I did notice consisted of a young guy and a girl, probably in their mid 20s. They got in, and seeing the crowded, standing room only, state of the bus, chose a corner near the doors to stand. I sort of vaguely, peripherally, noted the animated conversation they were having, and concluded – probably erroneously – from the body language and particular nyakami of the woman, that they were a couple or at least romantically interested in one another.

Soon, a seat opened up across the aisle, and the young man promptly rushed across and took it, leaving the girl standing where she was. The first reaction I had was anger. A clear, knee jerk, what a creep, he-should-have-let-the-girl-sit, what’s-wrong-with-men type of reaction that came from some lizard brain conditioned part of me. And that, the reaction I felt, that spurt of anger, immediately made me uncomfortable.

People who know me can vouch for how vehement I am about equality, about the abilities of women to negotiate this world without being constantly infantalised and babied (as chivalry does), and so on and so forth. The woman was not older, physically differently abled in any way that I could see, or pregnant (that I could see). Any of those would have made me ok with my anger, because I would be angry with anyone, of any gender, not giving up their seat in those cases.

But here were two similarly aged, similarly abled people, and yet my first reaction, my instinctive (conditioned?) knee-jerk had been of anger simply because the “man” had taken the seat. Putting myself in that situation, if one of my male friends had dared to offer me a seat “just because I am a girl” I would probably have beaten the shit out of them, or at least handed out an extensive and caustic tongue lashing laced liberally with feminist theory and egalitarian rhetoric. I DEFINITELY do not want a world where ANYONE gets special treatment (either good or bad) simply because of something like gender.

So, time for introspection I guess. About conditioning and its effects. About how successfully I have been able to resist conditioning. About how many of my received notions I have been able to ditch. About why/how I have seemingly retained some (unconsciously or consciously). And so much more.

The simple-impossible task of breaking the silence – part V: Rape

(Read parts one, two, three, and four of my series of blogposts on sexual violence in india)

The rape map of India (click to enlarge), outdated as it is, is a good one-glance artifice to immediately focus one's mind on the issue. Recent news has reported on many incidents of horrific rape, from the horrendous Nirbhaya case to the more recent Uttar Pradesh incident, bringing rape to the forefront of the Indian mind. However, most of us still dont see the problem for what it really is. We still hide behind ideas like "rare“, 'provoked', 'kidnapping and rape by strangers', 'it's not all that common' to happily ignore reality. After all, if we don't acknowledge that there is a problem, then we dont have to try to do anything about it, and if we can blame the victim or some faceless monsters, then we dont have to examine our own roles in the rape culture or change how we think and behave.

However, here's the real picture. Statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2013 show that there are 93 reported cases of women being raped in the country every single day. The NCRB data, shows that some states are more advanced than others in the matter, with Madhya Pradesh leading the line-up of ' bad place to be a woman ' with 4335 reported rapes in 2013, followed by Rajasthan (3285), Maharashtra (3063) and Uttar Pradesh (3050). and these are just the REPORTED cases. Any reported crime figures are always gross under-estimates of the reality on the ground, much more so in the case of sexual violence.

The number of rape cases that DON'T get reported are vastly higher than the number of cases reported. A UN study of 57 countries worldwide estimates that just 11% of sexual assault cases are ever reported, and this is in countries like the US! One can guess, then, how many cases actually make it to record books here, given our taboos, hangups over 'izzat', social stigma, refusal of the cops to take reports, and more. Realistically, it is possible that less than 2-3% make it to a formal report/complaint. In spite of this, India ranks number three in the world in the sheer number of reported rape cases, far, far worse than war torn poverty stricken Ethiopia at number 10 (feeling the superior glow of 'mera bharat mahaan' yet?)! Really something to think about, and time to give up the idea that rape is rare.

In fact, as a woman in India, who has lived here all her life, i can say that we all expect it, all the time. It is so common, and the entire culture around us so encouraging and supportive of rape and so much against the victim, that we have an "is this how mine happens“ moment almost every week. Every time i hear a set of footsteps behind me – even in my own lane, 20 meters from home – every time i find myself in any situation were the men significantly outnumber the women, everytime i am alone around a bunch of men, fear squeezes the gut and i automatically think 'so this is how my rape happens'. We are reconciled to it, we know that the statistical probability of this happening to us in our lifetime is far, far greater than the chances of escaping it entirely.

As for the myth of the stranger, the monster, from whom 'Indian Society' insists on saving its women. The actual, horrifying fact is that a majority of the offenders are well known to the victims. NCRB statistics show that 94% of the rapists were familiar to the victim, which includes neighbours (10782), other known persons (18171), relatives including siblings (2315) and yes, even parents (539). So let us stop to examine what, in our esteemed and much defended 'culture', makes it all right for people to rape so many women they know so well, without the least fear of retribution, justice, or punishment. Why do we have such a pathetic record of registering rapes, or punishing the rapists? (And no, one death sentence in a particularly heinous case does not count, when thousands and thousands of others go unprosecuted or slapped on the wrist with laughable sentences.)

This video may shock and horrify a few of us intellectual, educated, liberal Indians (does it though? Really?), but it is a very representative, very true picture of how the majority of the country still thinks of rape. It happens to 'westernised' women who wear jeans, have 'love' relatinships outside their castes, go to pubs, drink, smoke, mix with guys, and wear indecent clothes. Basically it is the fault of the victim for crossing every socially acceptable boundary imposed by the patriarchal structure of out society, it is her punishment for trying to fly too high, for having no morals. Men are not at fault, they are provoked. Either by the behaviour or clothes of the woman, or by fastfood, or some other factor! At worst, it is a mistake made by boys and should not be held against them!

However, the facts say otherwise. Women are raped no matter what they are wearing, from miniskirts to burkhas, from sarees and ghagras to bikinis. It is NOT about her clothes. It is not about attraction either because 12.5% of the total reported rape victims in India are minors and older women get raped too. From the gang rape of a 51-year-old tourist, to the rape of a child of a year and a half (how did she provoke? What was she wearing? Was she drinking/pubbing?having an affair?), to the rape of 6 year olds, 5 year olds, 10 year olds, children between between 2 and 10 years old, it happens, all the time. And this does not even include all the cases of rape as punishment, ordered by religious or even governing/political bodies.

Add to that the fact that marital rape is not a criminal offense within the Indian legal framework, except during the period of judicial separation of the partners, or where the wife is below 15 yers of age. When women's rights groups lobbied for marital rape to be criminalised, in the 1980s, it became an ongoing struggle for making this logical step to protect women in their own homes, which failed, because both the judiciary and the government argued that the contract of marriage presumes the woman's constant and never ending consent to sex. They concluded that criminalising marital rape would weaken family values in India (because, after all, what is more indian or valuable than disrespecting your partner and raping them and assaulting them and not even giving them the right to say no)!

But there’s little denying rape’s all pervasiveness in India. According to one particular 2011 poll cited by the Times of India, as many as 25 percent of Indian men admitted to committing an act of sexual violence, and roughly 20 percent of those polled conceded that they had forced their wives or partners to have sex when the woman was reluctant or unwilling. Maybe, then, it is high time to stop thinking about rape in stereotypes, and to realise that it happens everywhere, everyhow, everywhen, and the only one to blame for it is the RAPIST.

Since i posted this blog, THIS bit of news has come out. Another feather in India's Rape Cap. 

The simple-impossible task of breaking the silence – part IV: Conjugal Torment

In this post, part four of my ongoing series of blogs on sexual violence in India (read parts one, two, and three), i intend to discuss that tool of everyday violence and opression – sexual and otherwise – perpetrated on a majority of indian women, everyday – the great Indian marriage.

We live in a country where marriage is as much of a fact of life... for everyone … as growing up, growing body hair, feeling hunger/cold/heat, death and so on. We dont have a concept of choosing not to get married because everyone must. Neither do we, as a rule, have a concept of choosing who we marry (beyond a pretend selection among candidates vetted and put forward by parents, and even there the boys get a far better say than girls). So, we live in a society where as women, we are mentally prepared from day one – practically from the cradle onwards - to be compulsorily and without choice married off to a total stranger, and expected to fulfil our conjugal duties (read provide sex).

We are also a patrilocal society, where the new bride is expected to move in with her husband's entire family, and basically act as an unpaid maid-of-all-works for every member. She is also expected to dissolve whatever values, learning, personality she has manage to acquire at her parents' home, (often in spite of efforts to make her a blank slate) and totally reformulate her entire being in the mold of her in-laws. Basically, she is the lowest ranked member of the new household, with no rights, no voice, no one to fall back on, and only a long list of DUTIES and expectations to live up to. One foot wrong, one failing, one 'flaw' and not only does she stand to be persecuted, screamed at, even hit, her parents, their values, and their very 'culture' will come into question. Often, they will be called up to be insulted.

Into this witches' brew of seething turmoil, add the worst two ingredients. A lifelong training to grin and bear anything the husband does to her, and an almost total absence of any kind of knowledge about sex on the part of both partners, complicated by far by a huge set of myths and misconceptions on part of the man. My own personal experiences as an informal counsellor for sexual health, online and offline, for almost 20 years now, keeps reasserting to my mind how little we- as Indians – know of basic human sexuality, and how many wrong and dangerous notions we have.

For women, the extreme taboo surrounding not just anything sexual but anything physical means that they are often unaware of basic hygiene and health related to their own bodies. Menstruation, puberty, various discomforts and discharges, these are not just mysteries, they are things to be ahsamed of and ignored, often to the point of illness, and never to ask about or get a straight answer about. As for the male anatomy or the actual sex act, they know only what they can glean from vague but thrilling whispers overheard when the married women get together, and the suggestive jokes they are pelted with around the time of their wedding, both sources being useless as a way to learn anything meaningful and often filling their heads with dangerous notions and fear.

In the case of the men, the situation is far worse. Not only is their entire knowledge of female anatomy derived from foreign porn (leaving them with no idea what a real indian woman looks like), their total knowledge of the sex act is derived from the same source as well. This means they routinely expect their women to be 'brazillian wax'ed, buxom, unrealistically flexible, able to take monster organs with a smile both vaginally and anally, completely in love with performing oral sex, and capable of acts like 'squirting' orgasms. Sex, to them is insertion, thrusts, climax, and thats all, and they are convinced that the bigger and rougher they are and the harder they thrust, the more the woman will enjoy it. In fact, they have no concept of foreplay, no concept of sensitivity or paying attention to a partner's needs, no desire – in most cases – to even care whether the partner feels anything as long as they themselves get off.

To top that off, they also have the concept, egged on by friends and society in general and bollywood, and all kinds of popular culture, that a marriage MUST be consummated on the 'suhaag raat' or the first night. Most believe that if they don't essentially rape this practical stranger they now own on that very night, they will somehow be less of men, and their wives will question their masculinity as well. Additionally, with marriage being the only endorsed and allowed way for people to be sexually active, most of these men are like rabid starved animals who have been waiting for years for this opportunity to finally stick it in someone. And they are not going to wait.

The result, a horrendous night for the woman, which is a good trailer for what the rest of her sex life is likely to be – for the rest of her life. Scared, anxious, nervous at having to leave everything she knows and make herself into a new person to suit the random demands of a family of strangers, married to a stranger she barely knows (inspite of the 'modern' practice of a bunch of dates – often chaperoned by cousins or unmarried aunts), and already dreading an act she has heard enough about to fear, she is given no time to get comfortable. Forget arousal, she doesnt have the choice to even relax, or just unclench – mentally- before her 'parmeshwar' or god asks for his rights.

Is it a wonder then that most women, even educated, modern, free mixing allowed, working, totally 21^st century Indian women have shatteringly disastrous and painful experiences beginning their sex life. And no, it does not get better. To add insult to injury, we dont have a concept of – let alone a law against – marital rape. She has no right to refuse to have sex with her lord and master, and in most cases she does not even realise it is possible to say no. Ill or well, happy or depressed, fresh or tired, turned on or not, doesnt matter. If he wants it, he gets it. She? She is not supposed to have wants, or needs or desires or opinions, so it doesnt matter.

Rape? But thats what strangers do to women right? Thats why we call it izzat lootna... or robbing of honour. We force raped women to MARRY their rapists because it restores their robbed honour, never mind her trauma at having to have a lifelong repeated experience of sexual acts with the monster because there cannot be trauma. By virtue of the fact that he is now her husband, the rapist becomes someone whose attentions she is required to welcome and enjoy. Simple. So how can a husband rape his wife? He owns her, he has full rights to do what he wants to her, whenever he feels the need. Where is the question of her desire, consent, or refusal thereof? She is chattel, property, she has no will of her own. This is her DUTY! And this is the attitude not just of our society, but also of our judiciary and our ministers.

Given this mentality, a woman has ZERO legal or social recourse against cruelty. No matter what he does to her sexually, and how much she suffers, she has no support. No one to turn to, no help, no way of stopping it. In most cases she does not even realise that this is abnormal. An overwhelming number of women think that it is normal for sex to hurt, all the time, everytime, and more than half of them have never even come close to an orgasm. It is not surprising that women suffer decades of sexual trauma at home, at the hands of the very peperson who is supposed to care most for her, and often does not even recognise it as torture. Even if she does, she has nowhere to turn, no one who can help. She just has to live with it until one of them dies.

The simple-impossible task of breaking the silence – part III: “Eve Teasing”

Another apect of the daily, all pervasive, constant atmosphere of sexual harrassment (read more about it HERE and HERE), and abuse, and objectification of women, trans people, effeminate men, and all possible “others” is our very own home grown quaint and innoccuous sounding phenomenon of eve teasing.

Fantastic, isn't it? We see daily public molestation and harrasment of a large section of our population as so much of a non problem that we dont even bother to call it harrassment at all! We call it teasing. As if it is something like a dear friend gently teasing another for fun, or a sibling pulling anothers leg gently, and with love. The reality? It is abuse, it is violation, it is violence on the person, it is harrassment, it is disgusting, sick-making, scary, threatening, and a lot of other things. It is NOT fun, not for the recipient at least, and it is not cute. It is not cute when the recipient is a child (yes children are “eve teased” too), and it is not cute when she is a teen or an adult.

Most people i talk to... no thats not true ... most MEN i talk to dont realise 2 things. How common it is, and how horrible it feels to the one on the recieving end. Like ragging in colleges, eve teasing has been given social sanction, has become a “boys will be boys” “harmless fun” “dont overreact” “not a big deal” “everyone does it” kind of activity that almost seems to be a part of some male rite of passage, of proving mardangi. As if treating half the population as objects, as playthings, as less than human, says anything complimentary about you at all. Bollywood makes matters much worse, with almost every movie showing the hero “eve teasing” and harrassing the heroine for often extended periods of time as a way of showing his romantic interest, after which the heroine proceeds to fall in love with him. NO, groping, harrassing, catcalling me are NOT aceptable or welcome ways to show me you like me. And NO i am DEFINITELY not going to like you for this behaviour. It will disgust me, anger me, make me want to castrate you, but it will NOT, under any circumstance, make me want to date, romance, or marry you.

And most men seriously dont understand how common or horrible it is! The occassional news report of a woman molested in something as flashy as the Delhi Metro, and protesting, has them clicking their tongues in annoyance and muttering about how unsafe Delhi has always been for women, but they have NO clue what their own friends, sisters, mothers, wives, aunts, daughters face every single day as they go about the business of their daily lives. Of all the men i have talked to in my life... and that numbers in tens of thousands both online as well as face to face ... almost 90-95% had no idea how everyday and common molestation in daily life was and is for women, especially in india.

I do not know of a single indian woman who has never faced the nasty creepiness of “eve teasing”. The milder forms – catcalling, crude comments, leers – we just habitually shrug off, in spite of the ditry feeling it leaves on our skins and the nasty taste in the mouth, because it could have been so much worse, and often is. The first few times a girl (yes girl... as in child... for example the first explicit molestation i can remember in public transport was when i was 10-11) has to deal with some creepy man pressing in too close to her in a bus or local train, often with an erection (which she may not know about but which feels icky nevertheless) pressing into her back, it comes as a huge shock. She freezes, feels nauseated, shaky, and before she can get her wits together, she has been groped a few times and the guy is gone.

She may or may not choose to tell someone about it. May not... because she has been brought up not only to feel powerless and without agency in most things, but also because anything to do with sex, men and women, those body parts, and so on is such a taboo that she may not even have language to describe what happened or why she feels violated. May not because she fears, rightly, that she will be the one to blame, that it is somehow her fault, because that is what society will think too. Too much freedom, too short/tight/few clothes, too much agressiveness, too much something. If she does tell, it will probably be another woman, her mother or an elder sister/cousin, or friends. And that's when she will realise that it happens to all of them, even to much larger and scarier extents, and that they shrug it off as part of being a woman in india. And they will advise her to do the same, and she will learn to do it.

And it gets worse when men are in groups. All girls/women/transpeople/others soon realise the basic rule. You can easily and safely walk past or be around most men, as long as they are alone. Chances are above avarage (not good, but better than otherwise) that you will be fine, and unmolested. Yet put them in a group, and it is best to cross the road to avoid them. Even boys we knew, at durga pujas or neighbourhood gatherings, perfectly well behaved and even nice as some of them were, we would not walk past them when they were surrounded by a bunch of their pals. Something about having to prove themselves to be men in the eyes of their pals, and the egging on from the mob, makes perfectly decent seeming men (or are they pervs but just afraid to act alone?) to turn into creatures to be afraid of.

It is a coping mechanism for us, ignoring or just not thinking about what happens almost everyday. We cant afford to think about it, because if we did, the rage, humuliation, disgust would be so great that we would just curl up in bed and refuse to go anywhere and do anything. So, we tell each other our stories (or not), tell each other “hota hai” and we move on. When a faceless stranger gropes you on the bus, move on. When a passing bicyclist reaches over and pinches your not yet fully grown breasts, move on. When men expose themselves to you and jerk off while looking you in the eye-- on the street, in trains, across the street, in the house next door, move on. When an autorickshaw/cab driver adjusts his rearview mirror specifically to look into your cleavage, move on. When 4 boys, not much older than you, feel perfectly secure about surrounding you on your way back from school to grope, pinch and molest you while saying nasty things, move on. When a long distance taxi driver thinks it is perfectly fine to lean over and grope you between your 14 year old legs just because you happen to be sitting in the front passenger seat, move on. When the guy next to you on the bus keeps “accidentally” pushing his thigh into yours and his elbow into your breast, move on. When travelling in the ladies compartment of a local train, when a man in a saree presses his erection into your lower back, move on.

And no age does not seem to matter much. From around 8-9 (much earlier if you have the misfortune to run into serious pedophiles/child sexual abusers) on a regular basis, this has been part of life, expected, accepted, shrugged off wth a “what can you do, that's what it is like” till today, when i am less than a year away from 40. and no it has not abated, reduced, or disappeared. Nor do looks or figure matter at all. All the women i know face these things, no matter what they look like, and whether skinny or massively overweight. Neither does what she is wearing. We have faced these things in everything from burkhas and demure salwaar kameezes to jeans and mini skirts. It becomes so everyday, so much of a non event, that we dont even think about it anymore.

Some of us do, however, take some innovative countermeasures. Making a noise may not always be fesible, or comfortable. So we come up with our own ways of discouraging the pervs. A rolled up umbrella under my arm, for example, is standard equipment for me when i step out of the house, rain or shine, summer or winter or monsoon. Delicate darling afraid of a few drops or a tan i am not, but the umbrella has a serious purpose. Any lothario who makes the mistake of getting too close is going to feel it thrust back... sharply... into his solar plexus. When a hand reaches between the seat and the bus wall and under my arm to grope my breast while i travel, or reaches forward from the row behind me in a cinema theatre to do the same, it will feel the sharp jab of my supersize safety pin – another essential i always carry.

And yet, we still call it teasing. We still dont think it happens very much, or assume that it is mild, harmless, and fun for both parties when it does happen. Isnt't it time to wake up? Realise the truth? And act?

Indian Male Privilege

A lot of the people I chat with, or interact offline with, especially men, keep telling me I am being too unfair, too caustic, too aggressive in my blogs, comments, opinions. Many of these people believe feminism is outdated, no longer required, because the world has changed, and “these days such things don’t happen, and women have all the rights” (to me this only means that these people don’t read the news, or have any idea of current affairs/reality). Most women would tell them they are living in a fool’s paradise. Any woman knows the reality of how patriarchy treats women. Even privileged, upper class, educated women, from loving, supportive, egalitarian homes (like mine) face enough social discrimination on a daily basis to never be fooled. Women in India re-realize every day of their lives, at home and outside, what it means to be a woman.

For the men who think Male Privilege doesn’t exist in India, who think everything is all rosy and heavenly now. Here is a small checklist of things you DO NOT have to face… because you are a man and not a woman.  

·         You were not killed before you were born simply for being the wrong gender.

·         You were not killed immediately after you were born by your father/grandfather/uncles chucking you in a well, stuffing you in a pot and filling it with salt until you suffocated, or drowning you in milk.

·         People congratulated your parents when you were born. Nobody consoled them with, “don’t worry. Try again, and you might just get lucky and have a girl.” Nobody asked  “What will become of you once you marry him off?” No one will comment about your parents “itne bacche hain inke….magar ek santaan nahi.” No one will be sympathetic to your parents about not having the child of the right gender to perform their funeral rites, ensuring their entry into heaven.

·         Even if you were the second or third boy born to your parents, you felt no less loved and cherished. No one treated you like crap because you had dared to be born. Your parents, especially your mother, did not get stigmatized as the bearer of only sons.

·         It was a foregone conclusion that even if your parents could only send one child to school, you would get an education.

·         You could say what you wanted to be when you grew up, when people asked, and people acknowledged your ambition, saw nothing strange in it, and encouraged you to achieve anything you wanted. Nobody laughed at you.

·         You had lots of role models, Tata or Birla or Sachin or whoever. You didn't have to search to find someone of your gender in your desired/chosen field to serve as a role model.

·         Growing up, you could choose from an infinite variety of children’s media – books, TV shows, Cartoons, featuring positive, active, non-stereotyped heroes of your gender. You didn’t have to search for meaningful male protagonists, they are the default.

·         There are numerous festivals around the year for the women in your family to give thanks for your existence, and none for you to give thanks for the women in your life. Clearly, you are precious and important enough but they are not. You don’t have to fast, and pray for the well being of, and worship, your sisters in festivals like Rakhi, and bhaiduj, or your wives in festivals like teej and karwa chauth.

·         As a child, if you misbehaved, and got into trouble, you were scolded only for your behavior. Not because you would make a bad prospective groom or son-in-law for some random unknown people 20 or so years in the future.

·         You were not constantly told to speak softly, laugh softly, sit properly, and behave like a “gentleman”, even when you were five or six years old.

·         You were not only allowed but encouraged to play outside. Becoming dark from the sun was not a problem for your future, and learning how to do household work, again for the benefit of random future spouse/in-laws, was not a priority.

·         You could dream of having a high flying career, earning big bucks, owning a fancy car and a big house instead of just a red lehenga.

·         As a 5, 6, 10 yr old, you could learn to dance, if you wished. No one stopped you because “in our house boys don’t dance like bazaru mard” or because “in-laws don’t like boys who dance; it creates the wrong impression about his character”.

·         You could wear shorts as a child, continue to wear them as a teenager and still wear them as an adult, at home or outside without fear of repercussions from your wife, your in laws, and society in general.

·         You only had to go to school/college, and relax when you got home. You were not expected to look after younger siblings, or serve your sisters hand and foot while they sat around like lords of the house. Neither did you have to help your mother in the kitchen, in household work, etc as a duty, and as training for your future.

·         You were never the one who had to stand around, waiting hungry -- with fathers and uncles -- while people much older than you ate their meals. You were never the last to be served, eating whatever was left. You did not even have to think about hurrying through the meal, sharing, or saving a little bit for the siblings of the wrong gender who were waiting for you to finish. You ate your fill and took your time. If nothing was left for them to eat, or if they had to wait hungry for a long time… well, that was not your problem. If there was one egg in the fridge, you got the omelet. If there was one chocolate, you ate it.

·         You could talk to your friends, even brag, about the changes brought about in your body by puberty. Your mom never asked you to keep it a secret, or to pretend you had no idea what others were talking about when they discussed it. You weren’t ashamed of the changes in your body and didn’t try to hide changes in loose fitting clothes. Puberty didn’t curtail what little freedom you had, and didn’t make you more of a prisoner in the home. In fact, puberty made a MAN out of you, and gave you more voice in the home, more power to make your own decisions, and to participate in those of the family. It didn’t seem like the beginning of the end, as a signal for the end of your life and the beginning of life as a lowly spouse/son-in-law.

·         You were not, henceforth, excluded from the kitchen and prevented from worshipping, for a particular few days every month.

·         Temples, like the Ayappa temple at sabarimalai do not exclude you from even entering their premises for 40 yrs of your life.

·         Your mother did not keep track of your physical processes, counting days and asking pointed questions if you were ever even a day late

·         If you have a bad day or are in a bad mood, people don’t automatically say “men are so moody, who knows what they will say/do”. They also don’t automatically assume that all irritation, anger, and negative reaction to their asinine behavior that you show or experience is because of “that time of the month”.

·         Your ability to make important decisions and your capability in general will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is.

·         You were not expected/trained to “hold it” in to an unhealthy limit, no matter how badly you needed to go to the bathroom. This unhealthy practice, leading to severe health problems in many cases, was never forced on you. There are adequate public toilets for your use. If there isn’t one, you are encouraged to just stand up anywhere.

·         There are enough toilets for your gender in schools, so that you do not have to drop out of school when you hit puberty.

·         No one leers at you and makes nasty lascivious jokes loud enough to make sure you hear, when you go to a store for pads/contraception. Buying contraception does not automatically make you available for the men behind the counter to fantasize about and leer at (since it proves that you are sexually active)

·         You have never had to do a gauri vrat, or a series of 16 somvars, fasting and worshiping specific gods/goddesses to get a good spouse in the future.

·         You were not married off to an old woman in your childhood “for your own protection”.

·         Getting and staying married is not the most important priority society assigns to you.

·         You are not expected to forget 20+ yrs of upbringing, lifestyle, beliefs, freedoms, tastes, and completely change your personality to become someone else.

·         Your parents have never been relegated to second class citizens in your life. You are not expected to forget about your own home, family, parents, siblings, and serve those of your spouse, even if it hurts or harms your people. You are not supposed to love someone else’s parents more than you love your own. You are not restricted from helping or taking care of your own parents unless your spouse/in laws allow you to do so.

·         You will never be expected to change your surname, and sometimes even your first name upon marriage. If you don’t, you will not be questioned by family, friends, and mystified strangers why you don’t change your name.

·         Your in-laws don’t dictate how you dress, what you eat, and whether you can go out to work.

·         You are not required to publicly advertise your marital status, marking you as someone’s property, with sindoor, mangalsutra, shakha, pola, noa, thali, etc.

·         No one else can dictate or control your body. No one else gets to decide when you conceive, what sort of protection you use, if any, and whether or not you have an abortion. Such decisions are made for you, BY you. Not by your spouse or in-laws.

·         If you decide not to have children, your masculinity, and your humanity will not be questioned.

·         If you have children, you will not be expected to provide primary care for them, and your masculinity and humanity will not be called into question if you choose not to care for them.

·         If you do provide primary care for your kids, you will be held up as an example of extraordinary parenting – even if you are only marginally competent. Regular, boring and repetitive jobs such as changing diapers and feeding will be considered your partner’s.

·         If you have children and also choose to have a career, no one will think that you are selfish for not staying at home to take care of your kids.

·         If you are straight and decide to have children with your partner, you can assume this decision will not affect your career in any way whatsoever. If career sacrifices are needed to raise the kids, chances are much higher that the career sacrificed will be that of your spouse.

·         Household chores, by default, will not be considered only your domain, especially the most repetitive and unrewarding tasks, they will be relegated to your spouse.

·         In a household where both partners work full-time, you are not the partner who is expected to cook and clean when they get home after a full day’s work, even if your job is more demanding than that of your spouse.

·         After work, you will not be expected to go straight home to look after your spouse, kids and in-laws. You can go to your friends’ houses, to parties, to clubs, or simply to hang out and relax, without being branded a selfish person, and a bad spouse, or a bad parent or a bad son in law.

·         If you and your partner have to live separately for some reason, like different places of work, it is assumed and considered normal that the kids will stay with their mother, regardless of her workload, available free time, etc.

·         If you go to a doctor specializing in “your” complaints, even as a 40 year old, they do not ask for your wife. They consider you capable of making your own decisions.

·         You can adopt a child. Within a marriage, you cannot be prevented from choosing adoption as an option by either your spouse or your in laws. The law also recognizes your right to adopt. While your partner can only “give consent”, she cannot apply for adoption.

·         If you are straight, you are not very likely to be emotionally, physically, and sexually abused by your partner. Nor will you be told, by your family, by cops, by courts, and by society in general to continue living in an abusive household for the sake of your children.

·         Marital rape is not an issue for you. You can express desire without being called a whore, and can say no to sex without being called frigid or being forced or beaten into submission.

·         Domestic violence is not a huge likelihood in your life. Unlike 70% of Indian women, your spouse will not regularly degrade, insult, and beat you. Neither will people assume that this is normal/ok/justified/deserved behavior on their part.

·         You don’t have to pretend to be dumb to stroke your wife’s/girlfriend’s ego. You can show that you are smarter.

·         If you earn more than your wife, or are promoted to a bigger post than hers she will be proud. This will not lead to ego hassles, domestic trouble, or divorce.

·         When your friends ask you why you won’t do something, your answer is never going to be, “Because my in-laws/husband won’t allow me to do it.”

·         You have far more choices even in choosing your spouse in an arranged marriage.

·         Losing your spouse to divorce or death is not the end of your entire world and your way of life. You are not expected to change all lifestyle upon the death of your spouse (giving up colored clothes, eating insipid, vegetarian, non exciting food, etc), and you will not be stigmatized for divorce.

·         If you are a widower or divorcée with kids, you don’t have to give up all hopes of companionship/ love/ remarriage. In fact, chances are that you will be remarried before the year is out.

·         Sexual harassment is not a constant reality of your life.

·         You can walk aimlessly around without having to plan your route and avoid certain streets/areas, at certain times of day/night. Nor do you have to ask people to accompany you even in broad daylight, if you have to go to certain places.

·         You can be certain that no woman will suddenly walk up to you and try to fondle/ pinch your privates on the street. Faceless entities will not constantly grope you in buses, trains, and everywhere else.

·         When you pick your outfit for the day (assuming your mom isn’t the one doing it), you don’t have have to run over your mental list of to-do’s for the day and wonder if it involves being around a certain kind of men or in a certain kind of area or returning back to home at a certain time of day, and then wonder if your outfit is appropriate considering all those factors.

·         You can dress how you want, without your character being questioned, and without your dress sense, or outfit being used as a defense for your rapist.

·         You do not live your life in the constant fear/expectation of rape. You do not have to constantly mistrust anyone and everyone of the opposite gender. If you are walking alone down the road, and someone of the opposite gender just happens to be on the same route, you need not automatically feel anxious/ threatened.

·         If you do get raped, you will not be expected to kill yourself or become a “zinda laash” whose life is as good as over.

·         No one will make assumptions about your sexual availability based on whether you drink or smoke or party or on the basis of the gender of your friends.

·         A total stranger upon seeing/hearing that you smoke, drink, or have friends who are primarily not of your gender, will not accuse you of being a blot on the name of Indian-ness. Neither will they insult you for it.
.    A total stranger, seeing you minding your own business and quietly smoking in a corner, will not walk up to you and ask"do you want to talk? are you depressed? why are you smoking? can i help you?"
.    Strangers will not follow you back home from the neighbourhood cigarette shop, because they "know" that women who smoke are loose, so you must be easy game.

·         All the movies you ever watch will not portray characters of your gender –smoking/ drinking as evil, loose and bad.

·         Other movies will not show a youngster of your gender who parties, drinks, smokes, and stays out late, being “rescued” when the partner of their committed relationship asks for sex, drilling it into you that this is not something that a “bharatiya mard” will ever accept

·         You don’t have to be categorized into just two categories in your entire life – father/brother or slut/whore/loose (in fact there is no equivalent word for slut for men, and slut shaming does not have a male equivalent.

·         You can have multiple relationships (monogamous or otherwise) before marriage and not be labeled a slut or have your character questioned and your reputation tarnished.

·         Ghar/samaaj/community does not locate its izzat solely on your body. You can have a girlfriend without fear of bringing dishonor to the family name, and you can even have relationships outside marriage without fearing a disproportionate backlash. You will never be killed by your father/brother for being raped.

·         You can have sex with your girlfriend without ruining your chances for marriage in the arranged marriage market (should you be interested).

·         You will never be caned in front of the entire school for daring to like a girl, or weaving a few fantasies around her. (Said fantasies shared only with your friends, and you having never even spoken to this girl).

·         A decision to hire you won’t be based on whether or not the employer assumes you will be having children in the near future

·         For a position, when faced with a candidate of the opposite gender, you have a better chance of being hired. This will become more and more apparent the higher up you go. Ifyou do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement of the result has any subjective angle, chances are people will think that you did a better job.

·         Shopkeepers, bank employees, CAs will not talk to you in a dumbed down language of “baby sentences” . They will not automatically assume that you don’t know and can’t comprehend basic math, economics, etc

·         People don’t get uncomfortable, and seem unsure about how to handle it when – in social situations – you join in to discussions on politics, current affairs, finances/ economics and more.  

·         Magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media are filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal sexually only to you.

·         Pins to palaces, cars to concrete sellers don’t use half naked people of your gender to sell anything and everything.

·         Ads don’t constantly brainwash you to stay young, unlined, smooth skinned, no grey hair, to “keep your woman”, or to “keep the love young”.

·         You are more likely to be given a loan as sole applicant

·         When people hear that you run a business, they don’t automatically assume that it is a boutique, or a family business started by your father that you are now running, or that your partner/spouse "helps" you in it.

·         You can be careless about your appearance without worrying about being criticized at work or in social situations. Total strangers will not comment on your waxing etiquette. You are not expected to spend insane amounts of money on specific kinds of grooming, style, and appearance to fit in, even though you make less money than the opposite gender.

·         If you rise to prominence in an organization/role, no one will assume it is because you slept your way to the top.

·         Your clothing is less expensive and better-constructed than women’s clothing and tend to fit better without tailoring. So you can always find something readymade that looks good, and costs less.

·         You can go to a car dealership or mechanic and assume you’ll get a fair deal and not be taken advantage of, even if you don’t know anything about cars.

·         Expressions and conventional language reflects your gender in positions of authority, (e.g., “all men are created equal”, chairman, etc) and reflects the opposite gender badly (e.g., hysteria, “don’t be such a girl”, etc). Most curse words are not insults/comments on your gender/gender roles/body parts. (in India, most swear words you can think of are likely to be an insult to a female family member, or a part of the female anatomy).

·         Every major religion in the world is led by individuals of your gender. Even God, in most major religions, is pictured as male. You can practice religion without subjugating yourself or thinking of yourself as less because of your gender because most major religions state that a man should be the head of a household, while his wife and children should be subservient to him. While most of them also preach that women are born impure, evil, and so on.

·         You have the automatic social right to have your kids brought up in your religion, even if your spouse professes a different one.

·         You can be loud without being called a shrew, and be aggressive without being called a bitch.

·         You can ask for, and get, legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men without being seen as a selfish special interest case. 

·         Violence that affects you is labeled “crime” and is a general social concern. Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called “domestic violence” or “acquaintance rape,” and is seen as a special interest issue.

·         When you go to the cops to register a complaint about such violence, you can at least get a complaint registered. You don’t have to fear that they wont register, or that they will perpetrate the same violence on you.

·         You can eat as much as you like, in public, without attracting comment.

·         Complete strangers generally do not walk up to you on the street and comment on your weight, looks, appearance, complexion, clothes. Nor do they stand by the side of the road and pass lewd comments

·         Total strangers do not assume the right to say things like “you are pretty/goodlooking /hot/attractive. How come you are not married?” as if looks is all you are good forand marriage all you should aspire towards.

·         You can be careless with your money and not have people blame it on your gender.

·         You can be a careless driver and not have people blame it on your gender.

·         You can be confident that your coworkers won’t assume you were hired because of your gender.

·         Your gender does not make it less likely for you to get promoted.

·         You can expect to be paid equitably for the work you do, and not paid less because of your gender.

·         If you are unable to succeed in your career, that won’t be seen as evidence that your gender should not be in the workplace

And last … and definitely the most important, you have the privilege of being unaware of male privilege. You take all of these things for granted, while half of humanity has to fight very hard to get even a few of these basics.