WOMAN/PERSON? How Women’s Revolt Against Oppression is Seen as Pathology

The central crisis in many women’s lives is whether to be a woman or a person. In India, when a girl child is born, she is simultaneously a child and a woman — the shadow of ‘Sita-the ego ideal’ looming large above her. There is a weight already stalking her — on one hand, that of countless ideal mythic heroines sacrificing themselves at the altar of society, and on the other hand, that of  the witches brutally burnt at the stake 

However, what unfortunately doesn’t get registered as vociferously in the collective memory as Sita’s¹ chaste character and unwavering loyalty to her husband is her defiance at the end. She beseeches Mother Earth to take her back as if it is only in the womb that she can be a person and not just a woman. Like the Buddhist theris², who gave up home, wealth, children, and proudly proclaimed to the world that they were enlightened beings, Sita gave up Ram, her sons, and extended family to attain her personhood. It is only in the oblivion of the dark womb that she can be a person and not just a self-less feminine ideal.

Women for centuries have given up the householder’s life and followed the path of renunciation, often to transcend attachment. But is renunciation only for spiritual/religious/economic reasons? Or is it often also sustained acts of rebellion against the mores of a society that destines them to a life of silent suffering? Here Amba instantly comes to mind. She was rejected by Bhishma, and then through feats of asceticism attained a boon from Shiva that was instrumental in killing the almost immortal Bhishma. Burning along with her rage in the pyre – waiting to be reborn to kill Bhishma.

When we listen to the story of the eighteen days of war in the Mahabharata, who gets foregrounded is Shikhandin (Amba in previous life) as a means to kill Bhishma. What gets lost

is her centuries-old rage at Bhishma and everything he represented.

Dual/Duel identity and the modern woman.

The modern woman is considered emancipated when compared to her counterparts in earlier times. However, she has the dual weight of  ‘Sita- the ego ideal’ and the ‘modern woman-ideal’ to duel with. She not only has to run her household impeccably and be a gracious host and chef, but is also supposed to have a lucrative career and a thin waistline. She must be conspicuously producing at home, in the office, and at the gym. Women now have to prove their worth at multiple levels: in their households, around their waistlines, and with their bank balance and investment portfolio — all markers of a ‘good woman’ or a ‘good wife’.

There is no denying that in the current zeitgeist there has been a cultural shift in India (as in many other parts of the world) with an increased focus on the ‘self’. But the focus is primarily directed outwards and is geared towards accumulating wealth and prosperity, without any regard for the planet and one’s and others’ inner needs. This excessive focus on the ‘self’ and its presentation produces a stunted self with a dull imagination constrained by the lure of capitalism, consumerism, liberalism, and many other isms.

Self and Symptoms: Marriage and the Modern Woman

The demands that the modern world makes on a woman are often contradictory. I understood the meaning of the word ‘SELFless’ after getting married. Marriage can involve the insidious

process of chipping away at the Self of the woman. This process is slickly done camouflaged in affection, praise and encouragement, and/or guilt and shaming. One is given the impression that one is allowed to be a Self; however the conditions for the thriving of the Self are absent. It is akin to a person attempting to breathe when there is no oxygen. The confused and panicked person might believe that the problem is with her respiratory system. Neurosis and psychosomatic symptoms then seem to be the only viable option. What can’t be articulated through words is spoken through the language of symptoms.

When a woman’s illusion of a liberal marriage breaks, she is in deep shock because she sincerely believed that she married a progressive man — suave, educated, independent, and successful. A part of her always knew that marriage is rigged against her kind but like most of us she also makes the human mistake of assuming that her life would be different and that she has chosen wisely (the hubris of youth I guess). She is too happy to notice the chains binding the spouse to his parents- the debt he feels obligated to pay with his marital bliss.

Perhaps she cannot see it because she doesn’t feel indebted to her parents the way he does — she always knew that she would have to leave someday so there was intimacy, but there was distance too. She was taught to be a good girl and she was taught to be independent, to have a mind of her own. The fragments of these self states came together to stitch her Self.

You see, no Self is truly one’s own because it is birthed in the relations that are embedded in one’s particular familial and larger socio-cultural economic context. The woman’s Self birthed in the contradictory hegemonies of her times- modern and traditional, independent and docile, is still her ‘Self’ though not entirely her own. This holds true, I guess, for all humans.

For many Indian women, when they get married, their Self is further coerced into the selves of others in her husband’s family. The difference in her Self is too threatening and dangerous. For her to become a part of the inner circle and not be considered an outsider anymore, she has to repeatedly prove her loyalty. She has to massage egos and agree to say and do things that might create cognitive dissonance, moral dilemmas, and emotional suffering in her inner world. The incongruence between her actions and values can be too painful for the parts of her that believed her to be emancipated and her marriage to be different. 

A female client  talking about family systems and their expectations once said in a session, “I can’t say things they want me to say because then I am dying.”  She ruefully contemplated that she doesn’t have a sense of Self because everyone has always disagreed with her true ideals. 

Any protests of her are shushed by illustrative examples of Mrs and Mr X who treat their bahu worse.

“You know she has to wake up every day at 6 am to make her father in law’s breakfast. You don’t have any such responsibilities.”

“My parents say when a daughter in law comes into the family, she has to adopt some customs of the in-laws’ family. It is natural.”

“She is at such a high position in a government bank and then on weekends she invites all her husband’s friends and cooks for them a fancy meal herself.”

The self-righteousness and moral authority makes these examples indisputable.

What seems like innocuous remarks are veiled threats to pull their weight. If earlier it was a woman’s dowry that marked her status in the husband’s family, now it is her salary in addition to the usual age old markers — skills at running a household and raising well behaved kids (“One kid is not enough, do to hone hi chahiye”). The demands for conspicuous production are relentless. 

This story doesn’t have a clean ending, perhaps it never will. This struggle is eternal, perhaps as old as life itself. And a characteristic part of this struggle is also the protests of women — from Sita to Draupadi to us. The protests might be reframed by systems of oppression as neurosis, hysteria, or other psychopathologies but they also render asunder the shiny expensive bejewelled saree of patriarchy – not as dramatically as we would want it to though.

Maybe one doesn’t have to alter what it means to be a man or a woman but imagine an androgynous self, gliding gracefully across the whole continuum of being a person. This imagination can be birthed (and sustained) only through the collective – the labour pains and the burdens of parenthood shared by the community of mothering figures – all bound to each other by the sacred bonds of sisterhood.

Tragically, women have been conditioned to openly and tacitly participate in perpetuating other women’s suffering and blocking their attempts at the cultivation of Self. What if instead women help each other for the cultivation of Self, a sisterhood based on Greek Askesis³. Instead of being defined and curtailed by the roles in the traditional family system, what if we organise ourselves around our duties and responsibilities to other women based on an ethic of care. What if we also bring playfulness and curiosity to this collective – an earnest and perky desire to encourage and celebrate our true authentic lively Selfs with all its imperfections, contradictions, and ambivalence. 

1. Sita – the ego ideal is a concept formulated by Sudhir Kakar. It refers to how the image of Sita – an epitome of chastity, purity, self-effacement and unwavering loyalty to her husband and father – is a powerful feminine ideal internalised by men and women. The author is using it here to refer to how dominant cultural influences of chaste and self-sacrificing mythic heroines can be burdening for women who might want to break away from stifling tropes.  ↩︎
2. Theris were senior Buddhist nuns and they bore this epithet because of their substantial spiritual achievement and consequent recognition in the Buddhist monastic order. 
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3. Askesis, in the context of ancient Greek philosophy, means a way of life focusing on philosophy also an experiential activity, emphasising on the lived rather than just the theoretical ideas discussed. It basically advocates for a person to embody their ideals through their everyday life choices and actions.  ↩︎

Kranti

Kranti is a psychotherapist interested in the inner worlds of women and how they are shaped by various systems -both traditional and modern. Through her writing, she wants to subvert the conventional understandings of a woman’s personhood giving voice to the subterranean and alternative voices of women not co-opted by systems of oppression.