Fighting Oppression without Catch phrases

How silly it is to tag someone as privileged or oppressed just by their collective identity! A subset of feminists think being a man is all you need to be privileged and to have no idea how it is to be discriminated against while just being a woman automatically gives you all the knowledge about being oppressed and banter about it on social network. Similarly, being born upper caste condemns you to being identified as privileged lifelong, while having been born in a dalit family gives you all rights to consider yourself a struggler who has risen up in status against a biased society.

I think, we all are privileged and oppressed in different measures. If I am born an upper caste male, I still am born a lower middle class Asian. In my local experience, I have experienced what it is to be denied entry to desirable or aspirational positions on the basis of caste. I am not raising any flags as whether it's fair or not. But most importantly, I am a person with reasonable intellect and empathy. I can feel emotions even if I have not been subjected to their primary triggers. So, I understand it in various ways.

Take for example 'patriarchy'. Of course, there are a hundred rejoinders about what it means and what it does not. But literally it names the father. In fact, it's originally a morally neutral term meaning just a social system. However, it's now tainted with a negative shade. And it's used in a negative sense. Isn't it unfair and sexist? 'Male dominated society' is much more closer to reality, because it explicates the fact that the society has largely been dominated by males. And yes, why should that be? Feminism is another word. It claims to encompass all the work that gets done in the name of uplifting women. But it silently propagates a falsehood: that doing fair and just things has something to do with being feminine. How ridiculous and sexist is this?! Being fair and just is a human quality, not feminine. If people have forgotten this, they should be reminded of this with all the force you can muster. You don't coin a new inherently sexist term and keep throwing it around just because it's locally effective due to its shock factor.

Oppression and discrimination has existed forever. No point in denying that. Oppression has been done against gender, race, caste, religion, ethnicity, disabilities and several other collective identities. We all have taken part in such acts, knowingly or unknowingly. We all have been the victims too.

So, my point is: let's discuss social issues. Victims of social oppression can be identified to some extent by name: e.g. women, Muslims, Dalits, coloured people, Asians etc. But let's refrain from using terms corresponding to the compliment of the victim set which directly or indirectly implicate certain collective identities as the perpetrators. 

Constructive discussions and useful actions can be taken by not identifying specific collective identities. This will let open minded individuals of all identities to freely participate in the movement as long as they have their head and heart at the right place. On the other hand, you create unnecessary strife by using inflammatory terms. For example, I am all for fighting for women's right, because that's just the right thing to do. But, I don't want to fight patriarchy because I am not with the whole drama of first attaching a moral innuendo to an otherwise neutral term and then using it to indirectly implicate an entire gender.

The King of All Oppression

One collective identity which cuts across all others, and probably explains the phenomenon of social oppression the best, is economic status. If you are poor or economically dependent, you will face discrimination and oppression. Economic bounty gets you social power. And power is the key. All oppression is in some sense done for it and using it. Haven't you heard of women who treat their domestic helps cruelly? Haven't you come across a Dalit who beats his wife or a Muslim who is sociopath. Then why do we keep talking about the mere symptoms and shy away from the main disease -- the inequity in economy?

Before you immediately tag me as a socialist or communist (which are another bunch of collective identities I find ridiculous), let me deny being either. Anti-capitalist -- to some extent. All I say is indefinite freedom to earn and spend as much material wealth as one wants is a ridiculously unrealistic and unsustainable ideal. Differences in social status/power should be treated as a necessary evil (but evil all the same). Its blatant and crass display or manifestation should be something that should be frowned on, or even curbed if required. If we do agree to do that, we will encompass all social discrimination. If we continue to consider this a taboo the way we do it now, we will keep hoping to get rid of the disease by treating its symptoms.

I would even say that these social identities which are used to simplify discussions by representing concepts often turn into a weapon of imposters to hide their intellectual ineptitude and laziness. These terms also get picked up by radical factions of all movements and are used to propagate hatred against people. These terms are so susceptible to misuse that I am all for a social experiment wherein we carry out our conversations without using them at all even if that means explaining what we say at length every time.

Two Sexes, Two Stereotypes

We always stereotype. That's a part of handling the complexity around us. When it benignly serves its intended purpose -- simplification -- we give it good names: abstraction, classification, categorisation. When it has significant side-effects, we call it names: stereotyping, pigeon-holing, generalisation.

I wish to draw your attention to a special kind of stereotyping. One men do about women. And the other which women do about men.

First, let's take on men. I feel the biggest stereotype ruling the male minds is that women are intellectually inferior. All we men suffer to a degree with this stereotype. How many ever women we see passing in front of us demonstrating how well they match us, or even exceed us, in intellectual capabilities, we seem to ignore them all, and fix our gaze on those who seem to strengthen our believe that women are intellectually inferior. I have observed some very intelligent men succumbing to the evil of gender stereotypes. For example, I have seen some very respectable men with respectable thoughts avoiding including women as their collaborators. It never occurs to them that women too can contribute intellectually. On the other hand, I have found many women themselves fostering such stereotypes in various manners. By being opportunistic, unduly ambitious and intellectually dishonest at many crucial points. For example, I have known such girls who have themselves accepted that they used their womanhood to gain academic mileage, be it in the form of shedding tears before a strict professor, or using their charms to gain professional favours.

Now, women. I feel the biggest stereotype ruling the female minds is that men are physically rogues. All women suffer to a degree with this stereotype. How many ever men do they see passing in front of them demonstrating how well they match women, or even exceed them, in emotional advancement, they seem to ignore them all, and fix their gaze on those who seem to strengthen their belief that men are sex-starved beasts always looking for the first chance to pounce on the nearest woman. I have observed some very good-natured women succumbing to the evil of gender stereotypes. For example, I have personally faced situations where I had to prove my gentleness to even those of my lady friends who would profess to know me very well. It never occurs to them that men too have a character, and can be morally upright. On the other hand, I have found many men themselves fostering such stereotypes in various manners. By allowing such jokes to be cracked, by behaving awfully to women, at many crucial points. For example, I have known good men who have never graduated beyond treating women as sex-objects. They would go about bedding women of all sorts before marriage, but would settle for nothing but a demure virgin when it comes to marriage.

It is not my intention to counter any of these stereotypes. I know pretty well that some of my male readers would be biased towards the male stereotypes, and some of my female readers would be agreeing happily with the female one. I don't want to prove them wrong. All I say is: stereotypes are given us by nature. Getting rid of them is a difficult exercise, a fight against our biology.

Men, as males, are designed to notice women who can satisfy their sexual urges which demonstrably exceed those of women in general. Women showing qualities which usually are vehicles of power and combatting capability -- be it physical strength in the stone age, or intellect in the modern age -- mean nothing to a man. They are additional details which only add clutter to the scene from where a man is trying to look for his woman, given the small set of qualities he is equipped to judge them by. Stereotyping is a process by which a man is biologically trained to filter the noise from the scene.

Women, on the other hand, are possibly hardwired to carry the opposite stereotype. The way their biology is trained to look at a group of men is a bunch of suitors from whom she has to choose carefully to ensure a healthy progeny. The instinctive dread of being sexually attacked by an inappropriate suitor is deeply engrained in their biology. The above mentioned stereotype is possibly a direct manifestation of that: Assume them all to be rogues. Be on your guards. A man showing emotional intelligence means nothing to a woman, since paying notice to such attributes takes her eye off from the difficult task of choosing the right man from amongst the wrong ones, all of whom are giving her attention. A woman is perhaps designed to take her pick from a horde of rogues. She'll eventually choose the best rogue.

Human species has evolved to such an extent that its members have an existence apart from that which their basic instincts command. In their world, men and women interact with each other as people. They do more and more such things which succeed due to good qualities like intellect and decency. And for very practical reasons, it doesn't matter to such 'human' projects whether such good qualities are possessed by a woman or a man. If a woman is intelligent, courageous, powerful -- well and good; if a man is decent, empathetic, emotionally sophisticated -- so be it.

I also recognise that we, as a species, might have advanced even to a degree where for some of us, the stereotypes might actually have started breaking. Today, a man may get turned on by a woman's intelligence; a woman may get stricken by the empathetic nature of a man. But I think, it's more of an exception than a rule.

As a man, I take two lessons from the above thought:
- I am a man. I am bound to have some inherent male attributes (higher sex-drive, tendency to seek physical dominance) and stereotyping tendencies. I can't hate myself for what I have got from my biology. But I have to be wary of them.
- I have to learn to accept the presence of stereotype among women, and me being involved in it inadvertently and inappropriately. I get very disturbed when I am treated in any way that smells of that stereotype. I think, I must check that. I must learn to live with that. Women don't always mean it when they fail to recognise or appreciate the authenticity of your gentleness. Their affliction from the tendency to stereotype is as strong as ours. Even if she is honestly fighting it, she may fail to resist it once in a while. It's OK.

I, and many many of my fellows, belong to a portion of the human species, whose interaction with the members of their opposite sex is barely sexual in any way . During such interactions, we aren't looking for a mate, even in a remotely biological sense (I honestly think so). Mostly, we are dealing with them as human-beings. Even our way of finding our mates has now a well-defined social process -- be it a love-affair, or an arranged marriage -- which has hardly any biological elements. Therefore, it should be to everyone's advantage to fight the above natural stereotypes to as great an extent as possible. Men should accept that women, in spite of their niceties and emotional hysteria, are intellectually their equals. Women must accept that men, in spite of their physical propensities and higher sex-drive, are morally their equals.

Jokes can always be made on how women can't keep secrets, how blondes fumble with mathematics, how women get late making themselves up; or about how all men want is sex, how they are dirty creatures, how their emotional intelligence is next to zero. We can always have a good laugh sharing such jokes. But behind that, I feel, we should be conscious that these jokes are possibly the only healthy vent we are allowed to give to our natural instinct of gender stereotyping. Whenever it comes to practical interactions, by fighting our stereotypes honestly, we personally stand to share a much more rewarding and fulfilling relation with our friends in the opposite sex, and our entire species would stand to gain (again, I honestly think so).