In Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar (The Big City), the male protagonist, who is reluctant to let his wife to continue to work as a sales-girl, tells her one day that the place for a woman is at home. It’s not that he is dominating or a misogynist. But he is essentially insecure with a fragile male-ego. He is wary of his wife’s steady increments and appreciations that she had earned for herself at her work space.
He admits: “If you were a little less attractive, then I could have allowed you to work. If beautiful women like you go out to work, men get distracted and their output reduces. A woman’s place it at home. I am a staunch conservative in this matter.” The growing confidence and newfound independence of his wife unsettles him – all the more when he becomes unemployed unexpectedly. The fear of losing control over women is a pressing patriarchal concern, no matter how big the city is or how small. Manifestations of patriarchy need not always be brute or arrogant though, as we may have seen in Animal. Patriarchy can also operate in polite and gentlemanly ways to subjugate women.
The home of women in the world of men
Patriarchy, for long, has been preoccupied with assigning the ‘right’ places to women. It has presumed and operated with this principle of the inner-outer binary of places. The outer and the material domain of the ‘world’ belongs to men. And the inner domestic space of the ‘home’ is a female sphere, as designated by men.
This is nothing but a modern patriarchal imposition, which is premised on the convenient separation of work and domesticity, which is a consequence of the urban-industrial order. It is a patriarchal ploy to confine women within the domesticated boundaries of home – or let her step out only for a while with a definitive purpose. Being ‘out there’ idly and casually is predominantly a male prerogative. This is a restrictive strategy to define and limit women’s aspirations and desires.
Awarding the appropriate and punishing the inappropriate
The last few decades may have witnessed enhanced participation of women in the workforce. Women have stepped out to work to meet the financial requirements of family. Women, in the city in particular, have increasingly become financially independent. The social acceptance of women’s employment has expanded. Her presence in public places is no longer considered to be transgressional. But can we say that men no longer decide what constitutes the right time, right place, right attire for women to be in public? Are men comfortable with the idea of women going out without a reason, at any time of the day or night? Has patriarchy stopped imposing how long a woman deserves to stay out and for what purpose? How she should behave? What she should ideally wear and when? How much she should cover? How much of exposure is appropriate? What sort of revelation hurts the standards of decency imposed by men? The acceptable limits of women’s presence and absence; women’s visibility and invisibility; women’s freedom or the lack of it, are authoritatively regulated by men even now. That regulation is instructed through constant appreciation and condemnation of certain appearances, beauty-norms, mannerisms, postures, etiquettes and behavioural traits. Female desire is disciplined by making the inappropriate, socially punishable.
Women’s bodies can be objectified, sexualised, tortured, tormented to serve patriarchal interests. It can be revealed or covered-up—depending upon what the man desires. It can be purposefully be purified or polluted; procreated or pacified; plundered or accorded to suit the patriarchal script. It is a narrative that is wrapped-up with the rigid yet delicate patriarchal foil of morality that has dehumanised women for centuries by stating that no matter what happens to her, she must have called it upon herself. She must have been in the wrong place, at the wrong hour, in an improper manner, in an unsuitable attire. Hence, she deserved the act by men wrecked on her. She deserved to be punished. And during any such circumstance, it is the prerogative of men to decide whether to protect her or to abandon her.
Who owns the resources and who gets to decide
Her education, her health, her nutrition, her sexuality, her desire, her ambitions—how much of all these are under her own control? Who decides for how long she can study and to what extent before getting married? How often she gets to decide her career-options and nurture her aspirations to advance in her field of interest? Who decides whether or not she can continue to work after marriage? Is it not true that men get promoted on the premise of male-merit, while women must have slept her way up the ladder? Aren’t our households full of examples of women sacrificing their careers for the sake of nurturing kids or to support the career-advancement of their spouses? Who follows the husband when he is transferred? Whose purpose does procreation serve in a patrilineal mode of property-transfer— father to his legitimate sons? Who is denied property-rights, so often? Who cooks, and who gets to decide what should be cooked? Who takes care of the household duties, and who has the control over household resources in most families?
Accept everything, expect nothing
The answers to all these questions are so obvious that they can be only used to remind our patriarchal selves about the absolute nature of obedience-production. In patriarchal scheme-of-things, the task of women is to follow orders without expecting any reward and recognition. It is to remain at the receiving end. Gendered division of labor has a deep association with unjust performance and execution of gendered roles. That glorified everyday-performance is full of enduring pain, neglect, indifference and injustice, while the woman is expected to be compassionate and benevolent. She has been taught to internalise the obligation of remaining hungry to feed to the men in the family. She has to be the sacrificial mother, sister, daughter, wife and girl-friend who never cribs, complains and demands. She has to bear the burden of obedience with immense display of effeminate affection and tenderness. Men will assert. Women will accept. After so much of adherence, unpaid service, if men choose to be promiscuous—it could be a sign of their masculinity, virility and macho-pride. But if women wish to look elsewhere, she must be a slut—a loose-character a source of immense disrepute—adulteress and disloyal.
Susheel and Baazaru—domesticating one; objectifying another; using both
Here lies the harsh truth of patriarchal prejudice: a woman who dares to defy patriarchy is a great source of fear and insecurity. Unmarried women, the widow and the prostitute cause a great deal of patriarchal anxiety. These three categories of women are not necessarily under the men’s control. They can exercise agency to a larger extent. Her body and sexuality, if not owned, controlled and tamed by men, can explode anytime. It reeks of indecent exposure. Which however is fine when sellable and manipulable through item-numbers, pornography and prostitution. All of which are domains of obscenity that men love to publicly condemn and privately consume. Patriarchy thrives on the binary of susheel and baazaru—domesticating the former and objectifying the latter; and using both on different occasions.
Normalise oppression; nullify resistance
Here is the sublime reality of the patriarchal project: it makes women its biggest collaborator and supporter in order to complete the cycle of dominance. It makes women accept oppressive everyday practices through the normalisation of oppression itself. And once oppression is internalised and normalised, it nullifies or blunts the possibility of resistance. The oppressed starts to accept suffering as a legitimate fate. To live with abuse, appears like a necessary adjustment and a much-needed compromise. Marital rape no longer seems like a violent act but morally-correct male entitlement, when violence is internalised. Docility becomes a pre-condition through patriarchal conditioning. Unpaid and unrecognised domestic labor does not seem to be so unjust any longer, when abuse is embodied. A release from such a suffocating condition also seems unnecessary; so does a corrective remedial measure. Conflict gets to be cancelled; justice—perennially deferred. And right to remission—reserved by men.
Dispel the lipstick and disapprove the choice
Let us return to Ray’s Mahanagar (The Big City), where the female protagonist’s new-found love for lipstick symbolises her growing freedom and access to new material-conditions due to her economic independence. Lipstick is positioned as a material-sign of individualistic choice. And more importantly that choice is soon ridiculed by her husband who dislikes its use on her. The lipstick has to be hidden from her husband and other in-laws to avoid any misunderstanding. As a flirtatious object of fashion-indulgence, it can only be applied only after reaching office. And its traces haves to be wiped-off before stepping inside home. As she makes hesitant strides towards assertion of choice, she also has to remain considerate not to hurt the traditional sentiments of men at home. Lipstick is a definitive sign of westernisation, female assertion and outwardness. Once it is discovered by the unemployed husband, he does not hesitate to immediately register his disapproval and angst with its usage. The wife throws the lipstick out of the window in disgust. This inner compulsion to dispose off a commodity, not only indicates the weightage of patriarchal censure, but also expresses the inhibited relationship that women are forced to have with enhanced independence and indulgence. The forced dispelling and disposal of the lipstick connotes how women’s choices are governed, monitored, resented, and if needed, co-opted to prevent the feminine-flight. Making women succumb to multiple patriarchal paths—full of dismissal, disregard, disregard and despair.
Sreedeep Bhattacharya is a Sociologist with Shiv Nadar University and is the author of Consumerist Encounters (2020).