Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher, who regarded ‘thirst for power’ as the sole driving force of all human actions, has many a one-liner to his credit. ‘Woman was God’s second mistake’, he declared. Unmindful of the reactionary scathing criticism and shrill abuses he invited for himself, especially from the ever-irritable feminist brigade.
The fact and belief that God never ever commits a mistake, brings Nietzsche’s proclamation dashingly down into the dust bin of nonsense. Whatever has been created by Almighty is beautiful and useful. His creative powers are fabulous, beyond the purlieus of any kind of fallacy. God created Adam and Eve – both the remarkable assets for humanity. The fault never lies with the Creator—the only Infallible. It’s rather always with the ‘created’ who deviate from the prescribed natural laws of living. And it surely goes without saying that woman, the best creation of God, has done the same, bringing a bad name to her existence.
Serving as a waitress in a café, clerk in offices, sales girl, air hostess, massage hand and performing any dirty or white collar job, she has in a way become instrumental in vandalizing the essence of womanhood. And ironically, she has started becoming absolutely desensitized in this regard and views such revolting displays of degradation as ‘progress’ and worthy of emulation! Reeling under the impact of onslaught from Western libertinism, she has banished all some critical concepts of womanhood from her mind and heart. The libertine culture of the West with its total advocacy of sexual mingling has influenced her thought power and disabled her to see beyond the materialistic cult. West has diligently pursued the task of brainwashing and as such gentleness and humility are no longer now the attributes of woman of East. Thanks to the mundane education and salacious media, and over-all social milieu that’s favourably shaping up the ground for all this.
Today, it is too vivid that a divergent view or ideology has emerged in opposition to unanimously mankind held view regarding the ruinous consequences of sexual liberalism, which by now has culminated in the calamity of spiritual retrogression. A stage where demarcation of good and bad vanishes, and individuals of a society or a nation are driven into the amphitheatres of immoderately high and mighty desires. Woman, in this whole background, cannot be exonerated just as a victim of circumstances. Her obsession to be like a man paves the way of her downfall, and when she falls, she falls not alone but drags with herself man also.
While commenting on such an obsessive attitude of the woman, which she manifests in different forms, Jennifer Coates in ‘Women, Men and Language’ writes, “They perceive themselves as belonging to an inferior group (women) and attempt to assimilate the values of the superior group (men). They adopt what they perceive to be male values”. There is no denying the fact that at any stage of life every woman perforce suffers from a sort of inferiority complex, and just out of sheer egoism she wants to suppress it somehow. And in doing so, she adopts the male values out and out. From air force to truck driving, she makes her presence felt and stakes the claim that she can stand as tall as the man. This is what the feminist brigade likes to call as her ‘heroism’ and has been elevated to what is known as the ‘sexual revolution’ which, we are told, is the price of ‘modernity.’
The woman of East has, unfortunately, without any reservations purchased this ‘modernity’ for herself, and she is paying a huge price. It is, of course, not a best buy. For what use the ‘freedom’ which costs you your essence dearly, which robs you of your individuality, and which snatches away all your tranquillity and solace?
The much-hyped ‘emancipation’ has shown woman nothing but the tragedy of being a weaker sex in a greedy media-induced world where she gets reduced to an image of cultural consumption. Such ‘emancipation’ has, in reality, denied her real autonomy and killed her spirituality. Her life has turned into nothing but a master narrative; everyone seeks to consume it. Beneath the flimsiness and hollowness of what she is today, there is a simmering discontent, a painful realization of what she is not. Bold-eyed, her ‘freedom’ is provocative and her learning inadequate to bear the charge of motherhood. A riot in her glance, she is no more than a skeleton-figured bamboo, whose thoughts are resplendent with nothing but the ‘Western light’. To quote Allama Iqbal:
On the dusk and evening of her days,
not one star shines.
Her sacred charms are
all unloosed and spilled.
Inwardly, no woman she!

(The author teaches at Media Education Research Centre, MERC, University of Kashmir)

Lastupdate on : Sat, 19 Mar 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 19 Mar 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 20 Mar 2011 00:00:00 IST