Am I a liberated woman ?

Am I a liberated woman, liberated in the real sense of the word. Liberated means free from traditional opinions or ways of behaving that might limit you in what you think or do. It means not following traditional ways of behaving or old ideas as per Cambridge dictionary. I fancy myself a liberated woman, am I mixing up being emancipated with being liberated? Emancipated means free from another person’s control or free from social or political limitations and surely I am one to a large extent. I have grown up in a very democratic household, an open household where though my father was clearly the head of the family but he never behaved in a dictatorial or for that matter in a manner that even ever smacked of him imposing his will on us. My mother’s deference towards my father was out of genuine respect, love and affection, though she would have her way whenever she needed to. I never felt while growing up that my mother was subject to my father’s authority, which she wasn’t and is still not or she and her actions in any way were restricted or constrained because of her being a woman. It looked like a very comfortable arrangement. Papa was getting the money in to the house and mummy was running the household. Our nuclear family was a part of a large, deeply connected and a loving larger family. I would see similar arrangements in other households also. Two of my aunts were working women, even then they were discharging similar duties towards the household that others who were not going out to work were discharging albeit to a wee bit little lesser extent if I may say so. I was never told by my parents, especially my father that I could not do or get something or have to do some specific tasks or behave in a certain way because I was a girl. In fact to be honest I didn’t realise the difference between being a girl or a boy while growing up for a while. Once I was around ten or eleven I started to hear people around me say things like, you need to behave like a girl or girls don’t do this or that or why are you always wanting to do what boys do. These were innocuous comments made by people who otherwise were very loving and caring and if I say that these comments were being made according to them in my interest would not be wrong. It never bothered me because it was not being reinforced by my parents inside our house and since we were a nuclear family it didn’t matter much what others had to say. I was a little girl, would forget these things very soon and continue to behave the only way I knew again when we met these people who were making these comments. After a while I realised that people would tell my parents especially father that girls have to be raised like girls and you have given a long rope to your daughters. My mother around this time I think wasn’t so sure of herself so often she would also question my father as to why he wasn’t being more careful with us. I had all masculine qualities my mother would say and by that she would mean I had zid( stubbornness) , hath (insistence), temper, ego, assertiveness. Girls were supposed to be calm, composed and submissive. She would also give me examples at times of other girls within the family or friends’ circle who were submissive or demure, behaved like girls according to her and helped their mothers’ with the household chores. I remember telling her that I didn’t behave like them because I wasn’t them and I don’t want to be like them. My refrain used to be that why should I help you with anything when you have people working for you to do these chores. My mother used to get worried and frustrated with me and also with my father who had allowed me complete freedom to grow as a person. To be fair to her, I can’t blame her at all as she was a woman of her times, a product of her circumstances and her social milieu. She was thinking ahead and was making herself unnecessarily worried about how would a girl like me find a suitable match. I didn’t fit the description of a girl who is supposed to have all great feminine qualities. Apart from the attributes mentioned above I also had a mind of my own, I had a voice which I used very often to ask questions from everyone around me and also to debate with people who I wasn’t supposed to argue with at all. For my poor mother this was not a good sign for things to come. I am not saying that my father was socially bohemian if that describes what I want to say, he wasn’t though a disciplinarian but he had his own ways to make sure that we worked hard, we develop work ethics, we learn to value integrity and honesty, we have confidence in our self-worth and most importantly we have ample self-esteem. He was invested in our overall development and always encouraged us to explore everything that we came across and engaged with us like the new age dad does at present. He treated us as an aware, sensitive, doting, loving father would treat his children irrespective of their gender. This was in contradiction with what was happening outside our household, in our larger family, friends’ houses and society in general. This dichotomy started to have an impact on my psyche without my conscious awareness or even slightest realisation at that point in time, in fact till much later in life. I started to figure out that what happens inside our household is not how the world works. In general even in educated and well-heeled families girls were supposed to behave a certain way if she was to be liked or get approval, dress up according to the sensitivities of everyone around her and speak only when it is appropriate for a girl to speak. Asking questions that too uncomfortable ones, challenging the established norms and the accepted way of life or even their authority if that didn’t make sense, from elders was out-rightly bad manners and reflected upon my mother’s skill of raising a daughter. People around her would often make a cutting remark that my mother wasn’t doing a good job as her daughter was what she was. Wanting to be treated as an equal in every which way not just the portions of goodies or clothes but even when it came to choosing my subjects in college or pursuing a particular profession to an opportunity to speak my mind in extended family gatherings and to have full authority regarding who I wanted to marry and have an independent opinion on anything and everything like everyone else was something that didn’t go well with many people. When I tried to have a say in how rituals or customs would be followed in my wedding, I was rebuked and reprimanded. When I reminded my family that my male cousins before me have been lauded for their belief and action they relented. When I called out the hypocrisy, my family yielded, they were defensive and in principle agreed with me. They said they were trying to protect me as the world outside was still not ready to deal with and accept girls like me. When I told them that my fiancé is onboard and he knows who I am as a person, they were relieved. I must however credit everyone in my eco-system to have made their peace with who I was and hopefully who I am by treating me like a different species of woman. I don’t think it was an acknowledgement and acceptance of who I was as a person but was a kind of an arrangement where I was allowed to be myself. People around me still make comments and statements which sometimes I can’t figure out whether are complements or complaints, sarcasm or even grudge dressed as compliments. The point that I am trying to make is that even though I was very fortunate to have got the parents that I had especially my father who had the courage of conviction and raised us the way he felt was right for his daughters, I don’t think we are or I am a liberated woman in the real sense of the word. My free spirit got tempered by the atmosphere of my surroundings, by the community mores and societal norms that I was observing while growing up. No one could stop that, neither my father’s conviction, nor my own awareness which in any case came pretty late in life. No one has any control on what happens outside of a house and no one can stop a child imbibing from observing the larger family, the community and the society around them. Extended family, friends, community and society was still working on the premise of girls being the weaker sex, on the premise that there is a difference between a girl and a boy and both genders have their specific roles for families and society to work normally and efficiently. No one still questioned these premises in any significant way in those days in the society that I was growing up in. Girls were happy being girls and looked down upon girls who were not the quintessential girls. These are called structural and systemic biases and condition a child in a manner that when they grow up, they fit in the system and by and large play their supposed roles. This is social conditioning and I was no exception as I too was subject to all these biases though in a little diluted form because of what was happening inside the house. I became a person that I have become as a result of my experiences both inside of my own house and also outside of the house. The confidence that I got from inside my house equipped me to a large extent to deal with what I was facing outside but could not ensure that I don’t get affected by that deep inside me . My thinking and thought process is a result of this mixed experience. I rejected things which were out rightly, blatantly discriminatory for women but could not even recognise stuff that had very nuanced and subtle biases. I never questioned Kanya-Daan when it was perfommed at my wedding because it was a done think. It is a very emotional subject and a great example of social conditioning of girls since they are told being 'paraya dhan' since the day they are born but now it doesn’t agree with me as a concept. My instinct after I got married that I need to run my house which essentially meant the kitchen and the general up keep of the house since I am the lady of the house, a feeling that i had some duties towards my in-laws without anyone having to tell me are to my mind examples of social conditioning. I don’t think my husband would have had any such feeling towards my parents. Yes technically I became a part of his family as per the trsditions but we were not living with them. We had set up our own house as we lived in a different city so both of us left our parents’ house to set up our own and since we were married to each other, my family was also as much family to him as was his to mine. Another example is when I became a mother the feeling that child rearing was my primary responsibility. I am just looking back at my life and trying to make sense of everything. I don’t have too many regrets and have lived a good life and looking forward to living a fulfilling one. I have been as liberated as my circumstances, socio-economic background, education and experiences have allowed me to be. It’s just that instead of having some fanciful ideas about myself, I am trying to delve deeper to discover who I really am.

Menopause

Menopause the word, seems to mock me and dares me to figure out what this monster is all about. The word seems to say everything loud and clear that it does to a woman or doesn’t let a woman do when it is at her throat. Does menopause without any compunction say ‘me, no pause, come what may’ as in I am a deadly monster, I don’t spare anyone and will inflict myself upon you in all my glory whatever might be your fate or is it bellowing at me to say aloud ‘me, can’t pause, whatever I might be dealing with’ thus forcing me to speak out my fate? Both are true, neither life or its motions and other myriad stuff we call life stops nor does the ferocity of the onslaught of this monster abate. It continues to unleash a toxic mix of sometimes mysterious, inexplicable mostly invisible symptoms and a woman who looks hale and hearty from the outside is on the verge of a volcanic eruption triggered by a seismic emotional tremor from inside. It is a very complex state of mind that one finds oneself in. Hormones and chemicals inside a woman are having a free run, physical strength and appearance is taking a beating and most of us don’t know what to do with ourselves. In my case I have had what I call a ‘bonsai career’. I never let go of my profession completely but adapted it to suit my maternal instincts and I must add out of free will and as a choice made by myself without any external factor influencing my decision. As a result I have had a career but it could never reach its potential as I wanted it to grow in a certain way only so that I didn’t lose touch with it and at the same time didn’t get consumed and subsumed by it. I was confident that the day I decide to go full steam in to my profession I would be able to do it. Today I am working towards it in my own way but it is tougher and I still don’t know, how many more order of magnitude tougher, than I had thought it would be. It’s not a rant, I am just stating facts. I don’t need pity, I might do well with empathy. I wanted everything in my life and I was confident that I could achieve that if I change the order of doing things a little bit. The years that usually in an ordinary course women spend nursing and nurturing their careers, I spent nursing and nurturing my children and I wanted it that way. I carried on with a bonsai career and at the cost of repetition I must say as a matter of choice. I wanted to take a leap of faith and go full steam in to my career after I thought I was done with my active motherhood duties. I knew that this would coincide with me being peri-menopausal but never fathomed that it could upset my plans in any significant manner. I still don’t know with certainty how my present state of mind is affecting my plans. My plans are not going as per my schedule, something is amiss in me as a person, in my motivation, tenacity and focus and for good reasons I am tempted to pronounce this monster guilty. I was and I still am hopeful of being able to carve myself a niche despite life having become what it has become. Menopause to me was another milestone that as a woman I knew I would reach one day. I didn’t know the journey to this destination would be fraught with so much anxiety, physical discomfort, unexplained ennui and emptiness in ample doses. I didn’t have even the faintest clue that it would be much more arduous and protracted than I ever thought, to say the least. This is when I am not suffering from any of the symptoms in extreme at all. I have been experiencing anxiety and nervousness occasionally but most of the time I can counsel myself to my senses and other times I am ok after talking to a friend or reading something or distracting myself by doing some physical activity. The strangest part is that no one talks about it, even us women, amongst ourselves, as much as I think we should. We don’t warn one another of this impending storm that each one of us has to weather. We don’t get to prepare ourselves to deal with this life altering experience mostly because it is not a part of the discourse. No one around us usually know or let’s say can fathom the extent of our grief and pain both physical and mental when we are going through pre-menopausal and menopausal phase. I think everyone, including us women, feel that it has been happening since always and women before us never made much fuss about it so why are we making a big deal about it. Since we women aren’t talking much about it amongst ourselves in a meaningful manner I am sure at some point each one of us feel that may be we are overeating or being hypersensitive or behaving in a very entitled manner. We have a sense of guilt thinking that since I am not the only one going through this upheaval then why am I the only one complaining and talking about it. Once you start to talk with other women you realise everyone is struggling in one way or another. Very few women have an easy ride. Every battle is unique in the sense that each one of us get different symptoms in different measures. Some have excessive bleeding while some get hot flushes all the time. Some feel weepy, some feel anxious, some have panic attacks, some have palpitations, some have a sinking feeling, some have a foggy brain, some get a weak gut, some have a disturbed sleep pattern and some get pigmentation, some have mood swings and some get full blown depression. Some symptoms will stay with us for life and some abate with passage of time. I was talking to my gynaecologist and she told me about the entire spectrum of symptoms that a woman could experience and the bandwidth of that spectrum was absolutely mind boggling. She advised me to be more aware of my health, my heart and not to dismiss everything that I feel as a side effect of being in this phase. She wanted me to take care of both my physical and mental health, look after my diet and keep myself hydrated. Incidentally the timings of this monster’s arrival in a woman’s life are also perfect. The moment usually a woman starts to breathe a little easy after having raised her family and is either settling down in her career yet another time after innumerable breaks ( talking about typical middle class women who immigrate to cities for earning their livelihoods, this description might not fit everyone) or struggling to reinvent herself to find an occupation suitable to her education, experience and aptitude, this monster starts to knock at your door. This is usually a time in a woman’s life when her nest is either empty or on the verge of getting empty, parents are growing old and she herself has come a long way in her life without actually realising it. You are in the process of reallocating your time and energy more towards your own well -being, dreams, ambition and desires when suddenly you start to wonder that there is something really wrong with you. Either your mental health or your physical health is definitely compromised. All of a sudden the energy level starts to dip, multitasking for which most of us women pride ourselves, looks the most difficult thing in the world. A feeling of inadequacy and worthlessness starts to engulf you. You find yourself a different person in the mirror, the greys on your head are breeding like rabbits, the adipose comes uninvited as if with a vengeance and settles down at all unwanted places despite having successfully enforced a very strict ‘no vacancy’ and ‘no trespassing allowed’ rule all your life. Skin is not as soft and supple as you remember it was when you last saw yourself in the mirror. The laughter lines, crows’ feet, pigmentation are a few other uninvited but still expected guests I would say, who come to settle down with you for good. Everything that people say seem to either hurt you or make you feel small, is an unwarranted feeling, that you can’t most of the times seem to get rid of. You start to analyse your life and don’t find anything you have done in your life worth giving yourself a pat on your back. Every decision ever made by you in the past looks either suspect or bad. Even if everything is fine in your life you are hell bent upon nit picking and find faults with everything. I must say that though these thoughts don’t stay with you forever but such moments keep coming back to you with startling frequency and its scary if your life in reality doesn’t have any problem as such. I think if we have more open conversations about this stage in a woman’s life, both amongst us women and with men, navigating thorough it could become easier. We might not have to explain every time we are indifferent, uninvolved or disinterested in something or may be snap at someone in that moment when we are feeling the lowest in our lives. We all know that this too shall pass and when women feel assured that there is nothing wrong with them it would be an empowering thought. The fact that everyone is actually going through something makes you feel that you are not alone and don’t have to feel bad or guilty about the state of mind that you are in. People around you in the family and friends could become your support system and with their understanding and empathy life could become a wee bit simple in these years.