Masculine Logic

Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Sexual Fantasies (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Being in a close relationship brings you insights aplenty. Your brain certainly works overtime and some of those times, you stumble onto enlightening bits of wisdom (even if they are *hic* alcohol-soaked).

Here’s something I thought last week – the sex ratio is skewed in favour of men, in most parts of the world. Men are considered more libidinous so their need for sexual contact is greater than women. With more men competing for less women and with their need to associate and copulate being greater, why are we still the less powerful sex?

I know this will lead to a volley of protests on how women control pretty much everything in this world so let me explain.

What do you think of a man who does not get into a committed relationship? A player, a footloose/fancyfree stud, a hero among his gender. What do you think of a woman in the same situation? That she couldn’t find a man because she wasn’t pretty/young/nice yadayada enough.

What do you call a man in his 30s or later who continues to have dalliances with the opposite sex without getting into one exclusive relationship? A merry bachelor, a cool dude, ‘young at heart’. What do you call a woman who is the same? ‘Desperate aunty’, ‘Cougar’ and a host of other uncomplimentary terms.

What is the common response to a man who announces he’s getting married or into any form of committment? “Sorry dude, your wings have been clipped, you’re chained now.” And a woman? “You’re so lucky! Your lifelong dream has come true! You are set for life!”

When a couple breaks up, what does the guy say? “Freedom at last!” And a woman? Don’t lie, the image we all just conjured up was a runny nose, plenty of chocolate, tearful eyes and cheesy romcoms.

So how does this work, huh? If I’m in a minority and in more demand, should I not be holding the reins of power? Shouldn’t I be lording it over the opposite sex, deciding whether or not to dally with them, making sure they know what a HUGE favour I’m doing just by associating with them? The only way I could do that would be to grow a Y chromosome pair.

Someone tell me that masculine logic makes sense.

Love Is An Intergalactic Negotiation

Being in a relationship, it’s not easy at all. No one said it would be easy. Umm, actually it was implied. Love as the grand jackpot waiting for you if you played your cards right. That was a big hoax.

It’s more like having intergalactic negotiations suspended in the far reaches of outer space. You speak a different language from the entity seated at the other end of the table (or whatever it is they use in intergalactic negotiations). You have a few handy tools, sights reported by those who’ve been there. But it’s not until you shoot in through that door you realize something fundamental. None of those sightings have been of this particular alien. They’re all of the hundreds and thousands of other life forms that are alien to you and each one, like this one is different. You’re all on your own now.

No way to tell if they’re hostile or friendly. No way to interpret what a gesture is intended to convey and what your response will trigger. How then, is trust, a hidden but integral part of any negotiation, learned? You take a chance and dive the heck in.

Gridlocks happen, just as in every kind of negotiation. Confusion and mayhem may reign. Each side may leave much worse for the wear and just a bit poorer. And yet we continue to strive for exploration, for communication, for connection, for peace and harmony. It is the very stuff of life after all.

Besides, did you catch a glimpse of the stars when you were out there? You’re so small, such an insignificant speck in the galaxy. But it was you out there on that dangerous, volatile, gut-clenching adventure called LOVE. You earned your place in the cosmos.

(If you like the Idea-toons, visit the gallery or the Facebook album for more)

A Mad Woman

Watching ‘Mad Men’ brings up a thought that’s often just lying below the surface:

Why DO we put up with men?

The Rejected (Mad Men) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They’re horrible.

Date IITians: Gold-digger meets Pedigreed Pup?

Now here’s something that popped up on my browser window. I don’t know exactly how it came to be there. It may have appeared via an inadvertent click on a Facebook ad or a random link on my populous Twitter stream. I just know I’m going to get some flak on this one but it was so bizarre to me, that I just had to blog about it.

My first reaction was, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME??” As it turned out, they weren’t. Date IITians appears to be a social network/dating website. Here’s a little something that appears as part of the revolving screen.

Someone is waiting for you

You may admire a girl’s curves at the first meeting, but the second meeting shows up new angles.

And it gets better when you go in further:

Its the new era of Online Dating !
Thousands of IITians’/IIMites’/NITians’ profiles.
Make buddies, flirt & date your soulmate.
Develop a long-term relationship.

There is a certain kind of IIT guy that I deplore. I call them Pedigreed Pups and they are defined by nothing more than their degrees. It’s like they’re walking/talking certificates with zero emotional intelligence. But hang on, relationships & dating are about emotional intelligence.

Pedigreed Pups are human males too and to them I ask – is your self-esteem really so low that you have to resort to flashing about your college name to get a girl? Do you really, really think that no girl is ever going to take an interest in you otherwise? That’s really sad, man.

Never mind the sort of men that a tagline like that is bound to attract, what about the girls? What girl in her right mind would consent to being showcased like a piece of delectable meat (curves indeed!)? I’ll tell you – a gold-digger is what.

Since, and only because the IITs are institutions that India prides itself on, because a stamp from them ensure the entire nation’s never-failing respect and admiration, I have a problem. Firstly, does this not sully a strong, respectable brand? Secondly, what does it say about us as a people that we look up to the glorification of such crass values as gold-digging, blind objectification and gender stereotyping?

If IITians are the most intelligent minds in this country, how do they not get this? Or is it too much to hope that this is all a grand parody? They also have a blog, whose delightfully sincere and helpful posts tell me they’re serious. Oh well, different strokes for different folks I suppose. Now you know where to get your ISO certified dates from.

Weird Conversations

I guess there are some decent things about being a woman.

*If you enjoyed this comic-post, check out the rest of the Idea-toons. I used Stripcreator to create this comic.

One Of The Boys

I’ve recently been watching ‘My Boys‘ on Comedy Central, a show about a woman (PJ) who hangs out with a bunch of guys who are her brother, an ex-boyfriend and couple of other male buddies. I like the format, mainly because I relate to PJ’s character. I was her, at least once upon a time. And I was her for so long, I sometimes forget that I’ve changed for the world. The boy and almost all the people who’re close to me today have known me for the past single-digit years. When I let slip that I used to be a tomboy, I get a “Yeah, right!” accompanied by eye-rolling.

Somewhere in the early part of the last decade, I made that transition from tomboy to woman. Or ‘one of the guys’ to ‘a babe’. I’ve often harped that the changes are purely cosmetic; it’s just packaging that has changed and I’m still the same person inside. Or so I thought. I am after all, a result of my attitudes as well as the world’s responses to them.

Curiously enough, I realized that this transition to being ‘not one of the guys’ coincided with another personally important milestone – dating. Literally the minute I stopped being the buddy-girl, I became ‘dateable’. Initially it was as superficial as the kind of clothes I wore. Over the years, it has seeped into the way I walk, sit, laugh and behave. Somewhere along the way, it also shaped the way I think and speak.

Today, I find I have few male friends but I’ve had a large number of boyfriends and admirers. The role of men in general, in my life has changed just as who they see me as, has shifted. I occasionally miss being ‘one of the boys’. In addition to the fuss-free comfort, there is a certain charm in male friendships.

An episode of ‘My boys’ dealt with PJ having to accept that she wasn’t always going to be the most important woman in the guys’ lives. I think that’s the aspect of tomboy friendships that women like me find it really hard to admit to (though PJ did take it like a man).

A girl who is one of the boys still is a girl, even if the guys don’t see her as such. It’s a harder transition to adulthood for such a girl since she’s used to being treated as an equal. When she goes into the universe of love & romantic relationships, suddenly she is not an equal but a complement, a different role to play altogether. I think this is also the reason that a lot of friendships-turned-relationships struggle. Are you similar, playing for the same team? Or are you two different people, with differing agendas, viewpoints and attitudes to sex & commitment? It’s extra bewildering when the person you’re with is someone you’re used to seeing as one of your own side, instead of coming from a different place.

To come back, I spent a lot of time ruing the loss of those friendships as I (and my former buddies) got older. But I realize now, that I had to stop being one of the boys to become a woman. I’d never have been able to experience romantic relationships fully without exploring my feminine side (which necessarily meant letting go of my tomboyish side). And also, I realize that’s been a temporary phase of keeping one aspect of myself on the backburner to bring out another emerging side. I’m now at a place where I’m able to consolidate both sides of me – the woman’s woman as well as the ‘one of the boys’ girl. I’m neither a chick nor a tomboy. It’s a different identity, a different attitude altogether that balances both.

In terms of sheer numbers, I don’t immediately fit into a beer-chugging boys night out any more than I easily slip into a shopping-and-bitching kitty party. But I have a few close guy friends with whom I can lounge about in my pyjamas. And I have a couple of girlfriends I can be chicky with. Last month, I had a late-night conversation with a guy friend about his girl troubles. And through the night, I found I was switching between giving him the woman’s perspective to empathizing in a “Yeah man, that sucks” way. I realized I couldn’t even tell which side was my tomboyish side and which, my chicky side any more.

From one of the boys to chick to woman – that’s a good personal quest to take.

* Image via Entertainment Wallpaper.

Down With Women’s Day!

It has been awhile since my last post. I have let myself get caught up in things I must do and not paid enough heed to things I love to do. So here’s me saying, I’m going to make sure to post at least once a week here at XX Factor! It feels wonderfully appropriate to come back with my spewing self at this time. The barrage of communication, that popular media is bombarding at us about March 8th, can’t have escaped anyone’s notice.

Women’s Day is the new Valentine’s Day. I don’t think this day was ever meant to be more than a manufactured marketing opportunity, much like the 14th of February. By 2012, the blatant commercialization of it is hitting me hard enough to swear off the event.

For starters, the premise of a ‘day that celebrates women’ seems ridiculously parodist. The suggestion is that making a big brouhaha about women on one day, cancels out mistreating them the remaining 364. “Obviously not!” I hear the defenders of Women’s Day retort, “It symbolizes the movement and honours the struggles of women”. Fair enough. But the fact that it stops there is what bothers me.

There is a certain kind of woman who celebrates and is celebrated by ‘Women’s Day’. This is the kind that is well-educated, has access to modern media & other creature comforts and receives gifts of jewelery, clothes or a fancy dinner date. But, well, there are other kinds of women, aren’t there? Let’s not get into rural India, even in the cities, women comprise nearly half the population. The maids, the women constables, the bank clerks, the fisherwomen, the conservative housewives, the daughters & wives of sweepers, taxi drivers and watchmen – they’re all women too. Women’s Day (not belying its all-encompassing name) doesn’t include them.

I think Women’s Day in 2012 is an ugly combination of Valentine’s Day and the Gay Pride movement. Let me explain. The former was created to sell more chocolates, greeting cards & jewelery. The latter has been hijacked by a small but very visible group whose joint agenda appears to be self-promotion rather than actual upliftment of those denied basic human rights. (read this thought-provoking diatribe against the ‘Queer Movement‘).

I had a conversation with a cab-driver the other day. We were stuck at a crowded Bandra signal, rush hour made worse by mismanagement by the traffic police. He pointed to one uniform-clad figure and opened his mouth. I settled back for a minute of co-ranting about the inefficiency of the department & the neglect by BMC. Instead, he said,

“Why are they making that woman direct the traffic? Give her some comfortable job in an air-conditioned office. What would she know about a hard job like this, standing in the middle of dust and fumes & noise?”

I had barely registered the fact that the traffic constable was a woman. I was astonished by the fact that the taxi driver truly believed that he was being supportive of women. Perhaps sensing my discomfiture, he assured me that he was putting his daughter through school and that women were usually more hard-working and honest than men. Further astonishment.

You know, I don’t like being thought of as more hard-working on account of my gender. For one, the pressure that lays on you is unimaginable. And further, it turns a complete blind eye to an obvious fact – women can be just as lazy, incompetent and talentless as men. No more, no less. Setting us up on a pedestal is just as bad as grinding us down under boots – it’s still differential treatment. Why do some people equate deification to empowerment?

Which brings me to yet another thought. I think I’m going to cry if I hear or read another thing about Shakti and a woman being able to take the forms of Lakshmi or Durga as she pleases. Personally, I believe that these archetypes represent values, not gender-based prototypes. But that’s a discussion on religion that I don’t want to get into. Suffice to say, if the only powerful women one can think of are religious icons, how powerful a message is this to the common woman? Really, there’s nothing else that this country can think of, to say to empower women?

I know that I am exactly the target audience of the Women’s Day brouhaha. And I reject it for reasons other than altruism or boredom. I feel it actually demeans me. I don’t want to be treated differently (badly for 364 days, splendidly for 1). Celebration suggests a different form of discrimination. I need no special treatment. Behaving differently on one day of the year is hypocrisy, not empowerment.

It also hasn’t escaped my notice that this year Women’s Day falls on the same day as Holi, another occasion that has been debauched into a cover for unbridled sexual harassment. Now, isn’t that ironic?

Men & Relationship Conflicts: Adapt Or Fall

It’s a near-universal fact that men avoid the ‘relationship talk’ as much as they can. I also sense a feeling of helplessness in the average man when it comes to the woman he loves. Assertiveness is easy when it comes to rivals, opponents and competition. But men seem unable to bring it to the fore with someone they care about, especially if that someone is a woman.

The social dictats complicate matters. I can’t refute the fact that a lot of women use tears and emotional blackmail to have their way. There’s practically no way out for a man in such a situation. Taking a stand, pushing back and even holding onto what he believes will be seen as harsh, heartless & cold in such times.

Personally, I think anybody who resorts to emotional blackmail deserves only a harsh response. But I am a woman. The same labels may be hung on me but somehow they don’t devalue my social standing as much as they would, a man. Like most women, I’m aware of this fact and much as I hate to admit it, it doesn’t always stop me from using it to my purposes in a relationship conflict.

The battle of the sexes is not new. But it seems to have reached diabolical proportions. As long as each side has an equal win/lose chance, it stays an exciting, entertaining game that comprises much of our adult lives. But when one side starts to gain an upper hand at such a rapid rate, while the other fails to keep up, the game must be lost to an ugly battle and nobody will be the winner.

This is the reality and the man is just going to have to summon up the courage to go against an ancient more, to stand his ground. The changing times lay their pressures on everybody.

Image via Ambro on FreeDigitalPhotos

Mr.Modern Man, Get An Identity!

There’s a strange character out on the loose. He calls himself the Modern Man. I am not sure that I like him very much. For one thing, he’s really hard to find. He pops up, in a sudden self-reference and then vanishes under questioning. Then he resurfaces during what should have been a good moment, to ruin it with a self-promoting boast. I understand that he’s still trying to find himself. While about it, here’s what I’d like to say to him. So listen up, Mr.Modern Man!

Doing a couple of household chores does not qualify you for a medal. Get to doing 50% of the housework, without being reminded, and as well as I can, and you can have the right to advocate equality of the sexes.

Not dictating what your lady wears, who she speaks to, and what she wears does NOT make you a great guy. It just means that you’re not being a control-freak.

Fail in these and your stand of ‘Independent women can take care of themselves’  just seems like a cheap attempt to shrug off even the minimal responsibility that a male chauvinist’s role carries.

What is the meaning of an identity that is defined solely by the evils that one does not practice? A weak one, that’s what. Who are you, Mr.Modern Man? Is there more to you than the fact that you’re not a rapist/control freak/jealous monster? Identity is what you are, not what you are not.

I get how difficult it can be to break free of conditioning and resist archaic social constructs. I do that all the time, myself. But it doesn’t stop there, for me. You go against the grain and you break what exists down, so you can build something new in its place. Try being more than what your erstwhile counterparts were not. Define yourself for your values rather than what you don’t do or how well you meet my expectations. Most of all, get some balls of your own. I don’t recall asking for those to be chopped off when I let go of Neanderthal Man.

You don’t get to be great by default. And if you want to be the equal counterpart to the Modern Woman, you know you’ve got a high standard to match. I’m not saying the Modern Woman is without flaws or even that she knows exactly who is she. But at least, she’s got some sense of identity beyond what you or your brethren want to make of her. And the one thing she won’t stand for is vague, empty words.

Come back to me when you’re a real person, not just a fanciful notion in pop literature. I’ll be delighted to get to know you.

*Image via Idea go on FreeDigitalPhotos.

If you liked this post, you might also find these articles interesting:

• The Modern Man
• The Modern Woman
• The ‘Modern Woman’ Is Not Another Gender Stereotype

Girlfriend Or Single Mum?

I wonder if, at some point in the relationship, a woman feels more like a single mother than a girlfriend/wife. I know I certainly do. And I have one of the good ones. He’s not abusive, he doesn’t cheat, he’s not a male chauvinist. And yet, here I am.

I’ve refrained from talking about my relationship, except in very general terms on this blog. It is after all, a source (and showcase) of my work. It doesn’t feel very professional to do that. But then, my profession as a blogger/writer, is to talk about my personal life and what I draw from the events in it.

Here’s me saying, I’m exhausted. I wasn’t prepared for this. I went through my childhood being groomed to be a good wife and even an adarsh daughter-in-law some day. Along the way, education & exposure added their double-edged knives of modern thought and also high expectations of the opposite sex. I signed up to be a modern girlfriend, an equal partner. Nothing was said about the duties of a babysitter/complaint register/personal secretary/housekeeper/nurse.

There is the kind of pressure that’s obvious, that rams at you like a megaton truck, flattening you in its sheer force. That’s what we ‘modern’ types speak out against, the social stigma attached to a woman’s deviation from the norm, the enforced stereotypes and the over harsh punishment to those who stand out.

Then there’s the kind of pressure that the West has labelled passive-aggressiveness. There are only two people in a relationship. If one shies away from issues, it automatically falls to the other person to handle them. If one partner refuses to acknowledge that there is an issue, it still means that the other person has to deal with it, on top of carrying the elephant in the room.

There is more to life and indeed, a relationship, than having a good time. And when it comes to those routine, mundane realities,  a relationship is supposed to feel like a team. Chores are nobody’s idea of fun. But lapses in performing them signify a bigger problem than is obvious. There’s the chore itself that has to be performed by the other person, in addition to their own. There’s constantly having to look over one’s shoulder, the niggling back-of-mind concern over whether it gets done. And more often than not, when things are not done when they’re supposed to, they get harder. How is all of this not a problem??

If I have to hear, “I’ve had a hard day at work!” one more time, I swear I’m going to scream. Because my day begins the minute I wake up and doesn’t end till I’m ready to drop dead. Most days, even with that, there are things left undone. I don’t get weekends off from managing the house, monitoring the service staff. There are no sick days off from being the subject of everyone’s scrutiny on my dressing, my life choices, my career, my looks and anything else possible. My family and friends don’t recognize ‘I am tired’ as a valid excuse for not being a daughter & friend. Hell, I can barely get away with that even when I’m flowing blood & the hormones are having a party in my head. I’m a woman and that’s my job. It comes with no perks, no respite, no bonuses and no accolades from anybody at all.

The temptation to chuck career, dreams and everything else that it’s possible to, simply to let up the pressure, is overwhelming. But that’s a lose-lose situation. Quit all these things and I lose the right to a strong opinion, the voice of a ‘Modern Woman’.

There are days when I feel like the only way I can stay sane is to assume that I’m with someone who is less than me. That’s the only way I can justify having to take more responsibility, worry more and do more and still care about someone who is neither touched by the same sense of responsibility nor emphatic to my stress. It’s easiest to believe that I’m dealing with a child.

Imagine that. I’m a single mom without ever having been pregnant.