Missing my rusticity

During the French revolution, the march to Versailles was an example of feminist militant activism despite being the passive citizens who had no political rights and trained to be good mothers and wives. Women matched men in clearing the jungles to make North America habitable. When the world wars consumed men, women became the breadwinners furthermore shouldering the obligations to uphold the society. In Vietnam war women contributed by helping in nursing the wounded, constructing the famous Ho Chin Minh trail and airstrips. They neutralized tens of thousands of bombs, transported tens of thousands of kilograms of cargo, weapons and food and shot down fifteen planes. After the war, they worked in agricultural cooperatives, factories and production units.

In all these instances, women confronted the cultural norms and years of subjugation. They nullified the prevalent perception of being tender and helpless; proved their ability to be strong and defiant human beings. They reinforced the true nature of a human spirit that aspires to freedom and equality. The spirit that inconsequential of being a man or woman cannot be dominated by practised societal norms. These troubled times must have imprecised the gender disparities. However as the hardships ended women were shoved into their domestic moulds testifying their tenderness inappropriate for the world’s hideousness.

I prefer the troubled times that give us an opportunity to be human not women and protest to fit the mould that prompts women to be preferably beautiful, presentable and a surprise bonanza if they are intelligent too. I am bored with seeing women who try hard to look gorgeous, starve themselves to fit into some modelled outfits and above all end up mutilating their identities that lie beyond the appearances. I am as human as a man, why can’t I stay natural even if it is perceived as unbeautiful? Why do I need to undergo the elaborate (sometimes painful) prettification procedures and prove that I too am very much a woman? It is fine for me to sit in the audience than to be a member of an organising committee for being pretty.

It might be a personal decision to choose the way I look but being a part of the social order looks have their own benefits. Lured by them I too end up riding the bandwagon with a wish to dissociate myself from this mania and enjoy my rusticity.