Tuesday, February 6th, 2007
We had it coming
(This article appeared in Femina Magazine, February 2007)
The women are taking over.
The thought crept up on me as I surfed news channels over Christmas weekend. In two hours of watching six news channels, I came across only two male newsreaders and lost count of the number of women wielding microphones and lapel mikes. I tried the same exercise with music channels and, sure enough, the female veejays outnumbered the male of the species by a mile. There’s not much sporting action on Christmas weekend but the sports channels, too, have not been spared. Mandira Bedi and her ilk populate the commentary-breaks during cricket. In tennis, the women’s game has infinitely more depth and variety (the men’s game has little beyond the Federer-Nadal rivalry) and, going back to the news channels, one of the best sports bulletins was anchored by a woman.
My thoughts drift to the 2001 census which reported a sex ratio of 927 girls to 1000 boys in India, against a world average of 1045 women to 1000 men. In some States, the ratio is down to about 900 girls per 1000 boys in the 0-6 age group even dropping to a disdainful rate of nearly 850 girls to 1000 boys in some districts.
But if one set of statistics is alarming, there is another set of numbers that is heartening. Nearly 11% of village panchayats are headed by women. 50% of India’s medical graduates are women. Across different States, 13 Indian women have been chief ministers post independence. India has had one woman prime minister (and she held office for 15 years spread over the course of three decades) and in 2004, a woman created political history by not staking a claim to the Prime Minister’s post.
Women are standing up and making themselves count.
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I catch the matinee show of Casino Royale and a subtle shift of power is on display. The name is Bond. James Bond. But the mane is blond. After 44 years and five male leads, the sixth action hero wears light hair and occasionally proves to be a bit of an airhead as well.
Here’s the interesting bit. His love interest, Vesper Lynd, is no mere eye candy. She is a treasury agent (a brunette, please note) and is in charge of arranging funding for a high-stakes poker game he has to play against an evil private banker in Montenegro. In one telling scene, Vesper even demonstrates with cold efficiency, that the way to Bond’s heart is through his defibrillator.
Never mind Paris Hilton shooting her mouth off about every generation having its blond icon. “There was Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana,†she grandly stated, “and now there’s me.â€
There must be any number of women who secretly wish that Mademoiselle Hilton shuts up and lets Daniel Craig be the blond icon of this generation. It would be sweet revenge and turn the tables on eons of dumb blond jokes.
As for women in the movies, they are transcending traditional doormat stereotypes. Single mothers, editors, veejays, artists, designers, reel life now reflects the roles that women play in real life. Aparna Sen, Farah Khan and Tanuja Chandra have broken into the directing domain, which, for some strange reason was the exclusive preserve of men. Deepa Mehta, Gurinder Chadha and Mira Nair have gone a step ahead and made a global name for India and Indian filmmaking while a number of local big guns are still grappling with the meaning of crossover.
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Watched any ads lately? You can’t have missed the one where a guy sneaks into a girls’ hostel and steals, urk, fairness cream. Or the one where a guy steals into the ladies’ room and gets his clothes ripped apart. How about the Lux ad with Shah Rukh in a tub? Notice the four women on the rim of the tub. They are fully draped and impishly giving the King a dunking.
There is a pattern here. Watch this space for more ads where the men are mere props. Some ads will be a tad more tasteful than others. But the message is clear. Chicks rule. Oops, did I say chicks? That might get bleeped out.
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I am on a flight to Bangalore and the captain’s voice comes in through the speakers. Normal procedure except that the voice belongs to a woman. More and more women are finding their voice in corporate India. Women comprise 18% of the workforce in the organized sector.
Indra Nooyi, Pepsi’s global head, is number one on Fortune magazine’s list of the world’s most powerful women in business. There are three Indian businesswomen on that list (to put the number in perspective, there are six Indian companies in the Fortune 500).
Then, there are the scores of women working outside the organized sector and don’t show up in research reports. Maushi is the woman who cleans our office. We don’t know her name. Everyone knows her as Maushi. She is pushing 70 but reports to work on the dot of 7.30am. She is saving up for her husband’s cataract operation. He is unable to work due to his impaired vision. His income was never enough to put their son through school so Maushi started working very early. The son promptly dumped them and Maushi had to give up all hope of retiring to a life of comfort.
Maushi and others of her ilk make all discussions of work-life balance seem like so much academic poppycock. She works at two offices and three households, gets home and finishes her cooking and cleaning and, on occasion, even manages to find the time to chew a masala paan under a clear blue sky.
Womankind has figured out that economic freedom is what will liberate them from the shackles that bind them to the whims of the men in their life be it an uncaring father, husband, brother or boyfriend.
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Divorce is no longer a four-letter word.
The Family Court in Mumbai, which was set up in 1989 and processed 400 to 500 cases a year is now creaking under the weight of nearly 9000 cases per year. Mrinalini Deshmukh, one of Mumbai’s best-known matrimonial lawyers says that she finds more and more women walking into her office and asserting they want out of a bad marriage.
She believes the reason for this trend is primarily economic independence but feels that there is also a greater acceptance in society and there is no longer a social stigma attached to divorce.
Witness the success of Karan Johar’s Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna and compare it to the commercial failure of Yash Chopra’s Silsila, which covered much the same ground more than two decades ago. Yes, there are a number of people who still wonder why Rani Mukerji leaves her husband when he doesn’t drink or beat her up (or both).
Equally, a vast number, particularly in India’s burgeoning youth audience connects with the fact that lack of wavelength in a marriage is enough grounds for calling it quits. No use waiting till death does you part if staying together is killing you in the first place.
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So, what gives? What information pertains?
A screenplay writer, speaking on condition of anonymity, says he believes that only one point of view can prevail and he’d rather it is the male viewpoint. “In any relationship, there cannot be two rock stars,†he says with not a trace of shame about his chauvinistic views.
It is then more than likely that there is an equal and opposite reaction and women believe that if only one point of view has to prevail, it should be theirs. After all, the male viewpoint has been prevalent for centuries and women have had to endure primitive practices like sati which was abolished by law only in 1988.
The last couple of years have seen watershed laws in the areas of dowry, domestic violence and succession. It doesn’t stop at laws. There’s been justice too. The landmark verdicts in the Jessica Lal case and the Priyadarshini Mattoo case are two prime examples.
India has 21 high courts and 19 women judges (which is not even 10% of the total number of sanctioned judges but it’s a start).
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For generations, women ran our homes and ran them impeccably. They were denied an education, they were denied a shot at a career, they were denied a shot at life. They were denied.
Then, they decided to go out and get what was due them.
We can greet their assertion with shock and horror. Or we can accept there is another point of view and live more inclusively. Carrie Fisher once said her marriage to Paul Simon broke up because they were both flowers and in any relationship, one has to play flower and the other has to play gardener. There are times when one switches modes but clearly, there’s no room for two flowers or two gardeners.
Maybe it’s time we started playing gardener. A lot of urban young men already are. You see them making the effort to change nappies, put the clothes in the wash, whip up the occasional pasta, salad (or pasta salad on lazy days), doing the dishes and embracing the fact that all roles are best when shared.
Failing this, men run the risk of being marginalized. Because while we make a big deal of making ourselves useful around the house, women can multitask with supreme ease running the house while simultaneously running corporations, nations and space stations.
Mrinalini talks about a 62-year-old lady who approached her for a divorce after being married for 40 years. Hers is the story of most women and certainly most Indian women. She married young and didn’t have much say in the marriage. Within a year of being married, she had a daughter. While the marriage was going nowhere, she stayed in it for the sake of the child. When the child grew up, she couldn’t think of divorce because she feared it would impede her daughter’s marriage prospects. After the daughter marriage, she stayed back for her grandchild. Now, the grandchild had grown up and she felt ready to take a step she had contemplated for nearly 40 years.
Mrinalini asked her if there was any reason she wanted to go through with the divorce at this point in her life. The answer stunned Mrinalini.
“I want to die in peace,†the old lady said.
The husband, incidentally, responded by asking his wife if she was leaving him for another man. So typical. He was prepared to believe there was another man but failed to see that there could be another point of view.
Most women, empow