To all the lovely women out there, have you ever wondered who decided that rosy lips, waxed arms and legs, kajal coated eyes and manicured nails is what is required for a woman to be termed well groomed and good looking? They say beauty lies in the beholder’s eye but what made it a general trend to call these women who wear cosmetics, dress up in tight clothes, have a light complexion and look anorexically thin, beautiful? What made fat or dark women ugly but fair and thin women good looking? Being thin is a way of eating, a way of life, a result of genetics. Why is it related to beauty?
When you look up for the meaning of the word ‘black’ in the dictionary it says dark, evil, bad, hidden, absence of everything etc. When the mere color black is viewed as an evil and looked at with so much hatred, what would make the society have an opinion any better regarding people who have a dark skin color? Today it is mandatory for a woman to groom herself up with the so called beauty enhancing cosmetics to make her look bright, attractive and persuasive or even seductive. I have seen a number of people prefer golden, silver or other shiny colored items over others when they go to a store. Are we objects to shine so that we can attract people? The society has infused this into us over an extremely long period of time, little by little and right now it is camouflaged so well, that we don’t even realize the use of simple routine activities that we enjoy doing, against us. The society has hence grown us up as objects, objects of lust.
God created baby boys and girls the same way. This baby grows up to behave like a man or a woman only in the way the society grows it up. Even when the baby is just a year old, a baby girl who trips down while playing is pampered while a baby boy who trips down is picked up, patted on the back and asked to get back to play. Girls are dressed in pink and given dolls to play with while boys are dressed in red or black and given cars to play with. We are grown up as subtle, soft, silent and hence passive and submissive beings right from when we were kids. If once in a blue moon, a girl stands up against this, and questions the society she is termed a rebel and asked to behave lady like. The definition of lady like should be decided by women who go through womanhood, not by the society. A woman is adorned with jewels in gold, platinum and all those precious metals and stones, while the right over these jewels belong to the men. This makes us show pieces to display somebody’s wealth and possession, right?
One day it got late for me to return home back from college, about eight o’clock in the night. When I called up my mum to tell her this, she asked me be cautious, she said it wasn’t safe for girls to come back home at that hour. When I got down at the bus stop nearest to my house, I realized she was right. There were only a couple of women, accompanied by male companions. In a country like India, where such a huge population of women work late night, at least till 7 or 8 in the night, there weren’t many women on the roads. If there is only one woman on the road unaccompanied by any men, she’s definitely not going to be comfortable with it. But what if we make a revolution? What if there were 100 women on the road at 9 in the night? I’m sure so many women return back home in every locality at that hour. It would be much more safer right?
Mums and dads, don’t ask your daughters to be careful, ask your sons to behave themselves. Dear women, we are not objects, items, figures, assets or liabilities. We are humans born on earth, growing up in the society, working hard to find the purpose of life, striving to bring about a change in the world. We have interests, likes, dislikes, emotions, hopes and fears just like any other living thing. This freedom of choice, this freedom of deciding the way we want to live should be taken, grabbed forcefully, acquired and not granted by somebody. Hey society, we are not prisoners or slaves for you to broad mindedly grant us freedom, we can take it ourselves.
About the author
I am Sruthi, Bio-medical Engineering stud at SSN College of Engineering at Chennai. Passionate about reading, writing, craft and doodling. Great foodie, constantly in search for restaurants. Any comments, mail me at sruthimuthu@gmail.com.
Source: https://www.icytales.com/growing-up-as-an-object-of-lust-in-india/
