The Union finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, says that patriarchy does not exist. To be more precise, she recently asked, “What’s patriarchy, ya?”
If women stand up and speak for themselves, logically, she says, which is that patriarchy that can make them alter their states, that is, make them sit down and shut up? But patriarchy may be a guise that women are using to cover their own inefficiency, “not being ready”.
A woman who wants to do something cannot be stopped. Certainly not in India, Sitharaman says. Patriarchy is a lie.
We get it. Everything that we women cannot do is our fault. There is nothing between us and our problems. We create them, really, because we don’t do the one simple thing of standing up and speaking.
In the case of domestic violence, for example. All kinds of meaningless data are pouring in now as the world observes the 16 days against gender violence starting November 25. We are told that one in three women in India experiences spousal violence, according to official data. Globally, every 10 minutes, a woman is killed by a partner or a family member, says United Nations Women. Now only if the women had stood up and spoken for themselves, logically, at the moment her abuser or her murderer was approaching, the violence, though it does not exist, could have been avoided.
I have a suspicion that women do worse. I think in many cases they actually arm their partners, or family members, with sharp weapons, or a piece of rope, or a saree, as the requirement may be, and force the other party to kill them, the women, by making them push the dagger in or by strangulation. This women do out of sheer malice, just to spite patriarchy, which does not exist.
Employment of women, or the lack of it, can be explained the same way. Official figures put female labour force participation currently at 41.7%, which is a dramatic increase from 23.3% in 2017-18. Other estimates say the figure was lower in 2017-18 and some experts are still wondering how it could shoot up to the current level in six years or so. In any case, even at 41.7%, the female labour participation rate leaves many women out of the country’s workforce.
But since there is no patriarchy, jobs must have been lined up for these women. They just did not take them up. Silly creatures, they went back to doing what they love doing most, making reels. I am not even getting into their stupidity of not being represented in the job sectors that matter and at the professional levels that matter; and I am assuming that women, steadily, systematically and from the beginning, must have been asking for lower pay than men.
All these could have just dissolved if only women stood up and spoke for themselves, logically, at factories, at all workplaces. By the way, like patriarchy, the glass ceiling does not exist. Only women shatter their heads against it.
Domestic work does not exist, even if women in India are estimated to spend 10 times more time on it every day compared to men. It does not exist, yet it is said to be the biggest barrier that keeps women from participating in the workforce and becoming successful professionals. Women must have invented mopping of the floor, feeding the old and the young and childbearing itself as excuses to stay away from real work.
Sitharaman gives the examples of Indira Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu as women — Congresswomen! — who allowed nothing to stop them. Patriarchy, she says, is Leftist jargon that holds currency in India because “we don’t stand up” to them. Like patriarchy, privilege must be Leftist jargon, too.
Despite all this, despite having her, a woman, as the country’s finance minister, we complain and complain. What’s the problem with women, ya?
I stand up.
