In every society woman is construed to be a temptress. One who is a
lascivious creature designed to arouse men away from their duty. They are the
ultimate distraction. Without a woman, many religions believe, that man would
be complete. O well, he needs a woman to procreate with and satiate his base
urges – i.e to have babies to increase his lineage and to have sex with. (Mostly
in that order)
I am, sure many orthodox religions would
agree to the basic concept of difference between men and women put as such.
Naturally when an argument is put in such a
way, I would definitely beg to differ. The truth is such derivations have been
made by a patriarchal society. Like some say, the history of winners is the one
that is widely known. Its like the other side of the moon, so to speak. But we
as people cannot discount the fact that women mostly form 50% of any
population. Technically speaking, men and women form the human population. Therefore,
how can 50% of the human race be evil? That, too, 50% of the same gender? Somewhat
illogical, really.
The truth is as far as I know Hindu
scriptures (and that’s not much really), it says that you must treat women with
respect, for; they are your mother and later, your companions. They keep you
companionship and women have also known to be active participants or even
involved in the history of mankind. (Though seeing Sonia Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee
and J. Jayalalithaa, one would wish women would keep to home and hearth and not
enter politics!)
Men have certain duties and so do women. Both
have rights and duties. It is more like a division of labour. Depends on who is
translating that you understand how much importance to give to whom. But really,
both of them deserve equal importance. A woman has as much voice as a man. Also,
a man must be humble to attain heaven as much as a woman needs to be humble. Humility,
intelligence, an allegiance to righteousness, equality, duty and responsibility
is all there in our scriptures. These are all there for both men and women.
Some people always say that men and women
are not equal. Women have always been superior. This can be taken both ways. But
I suppose we should take away the gender bias and say that both men and women form
part of the human race. Each of us as people have a duty towards the other. So instead
of doing one upmanship, we must learn to understand that both are equal. Both are
people. Respect the other. Both men and women crave a respectful existence. Once
respect is removed from the equation, there is inequality. That is the source
of all our men vs women debates.
Though I think I have oversimplified the
problem, I have simply worked out the problem from my angle.
