I am not a ‘feminist’ or ‘women’s rights activist’. I am an Advocate. No, it is not one of my rants on feminism and women’s rights. Quite frankly, I don’t even understand the terminology ‘feminist’ leave alone ‘neo-feminist’ or any other kind of ‘feminism’. I don’t feel the need to have a specific word to define all there is to define a woman. Why cant we just live with one word ‘humanist’ by and large – this term is inclusive of all there is to define a human being, leaving the gender undefined. But, that’s a discussion for another day.
I am troubled. Troubled being a woman. There is a certain expectation that this world has of you when you are a woman. And God forbid if you happen to be a lawyer then naturally you are automatically a women’s rights advocate. So if there is a sexual harassment charge against someone, you will naturally be considered to be siding with the victim- since you share the same gender. No matter how flimsy the narrative may sound to you. If you are a woman lawyer fighting on behalf of your male client in matrimonial case, you will be questioned about your integrity because God forbid, your views on domestic violence are a notch too high and that you appear to be a ‘feminist’. Or clients will come and tell you that now that adultery is decriminalized, they don’t have any case left but you as a woman lawyer, wont understand since it is pro-women – completely overlooking the fact that maybe the lawyer herself has been a victim of adultery meted out in hands of another woman.
Aren’t we too quick to judge? Or is it the labeling of every person that is so important to us? Does this compartmentalization of people give easy identification so that one knows how to treat the other? In our society everyone is bottled on basis of gender, caste, region, religion, party allegiance, bhakt-or-secular, feminist or non-feminist, rich-poor and of course your proximity to power. The respect that one garners is dependent upon one or many variables.
Coming back to the issue, I was watching a very interesting HBO Original documentary last night called The Inventor – Out for Blood in Silicon Valley. It revolves around Elizabeth Holmes and her former company Theranos. Here is a woman who, in order to achieve her dreams, built up a company based on lies putting so many people at risk and drowned some $900 million of investor’s money. One needs to watch it to know the whole story or you can just google it. What prompted her to do this is unknown but I guess, it is anyone’s guess that she wanted to achieve success in limited time. She was already flying before she could as much as walk.
Now one would ask what has it got to do with what I am trying to say here. Well, a lot. As women, we are ambitious too. We have our dreams and we want to fulfill that and no, those dreams are not just restricted to having a beautiful home and two lovely kids, a dog and a husband. Those dreams are also about establishing a name for ourselves, to support our family financially and to achieve success in the area that we choose to work in. And we want to achieve all of that quickly, because the shelf life of a working woman is less considering the body clock is ticking against us. Top this up with the many who are waiting for us to fail.
Last week, Delhi was abuzz with women. At one side of the spectrum you have a woman who is accused of murdering her husband and on the other side there is a woman who has serious allegations against the head of highest judiciary in the country. The truth about both the allegations will be determined by proper enquiry and investigation. However, it brings forth the fact that the ’weaker sex’ is not weak anymore. It sounds so wrong. The next few weeks will be witness to various developments that will take place and I shall anxiously wait to see that and to be proven wrong.
Our biggest weakness, irrespective of our sex, is that we give in to our senses. That is what leads to our downfall and the control of these senses helps us in achieving success. Power and proximity to power, are both dangerous and destruction of an institution (be it a family or the highest judicial office in the country) is wielded due to the arrogance which is a by-product of such power. All I know is that there is always more to a story than the eyes can see. As practitioners of law, we must wait for the other side to present their case as well. Justice will be done. So at the cost of being ‘the-woman-who-is-anti-woman’ for my female friends and ‘the-woman-who-is-pro-woman’ for my male friends, I still feel that there is your truth, there is my truth and then there is ‘the-truth’.
Until next time.
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