The Never Changing Reality

I step out of my room, I hear my maid crying because her husband thrashed her and snatched her earnings.

I step out of my home, I witness a mother being beaten in front of her crying kids.

I see women suffering every day; I see wives living in pathetic conditions. Stories of abusive marriages and women being the victims of patriarchy are all too common to our ears. We’ve desensitised ourselves so much that some of us even refuse to acknowledge our sufferings as abuse.

Women don’t always want to leave abusive marriages. There can be various reasons, some really genuine, that make them hold on to their oppressive households. Leaving is a choice and so is staying in an abusive marriage.

All I want is us to acknowledge that abuse is real and many women in our own families go through it. If it’s not happening in your house doesn’t mean you deny the possibility of others around you dealing with it.

Just because a woman is readily accepting the cruelty of her husband and her in-laws as her fate does not mean we too start blaming her fate for her sufferings.Stop encouraging vicious behaviour of men and women around you. Stop spreading the message that it’s right to let men control each and every aspect of our life. By staying quiet, you’re conditioning your daughters into believing that it’s natural to be violated by men and you’re teaching your sons that it’s okay for them to violate women.

Dear all,

Don’t tell me mental torture isn’t real torture because he hasn’t hit me yet.

Don’t tell me it’s in the best interest of my children that I endure injustice and oppression quietly.

Don’t ask me to lower my tone when I speak against terrible marriages and horrible husbands that are still very much prevalent in the society I live in.

Don’t ask me to remain unbothered because I haven’t experienced any such incidents personally.

Don’t try to invalidate my argument by saying “but times have changed and women don’t go through so much torture and trauma as you say”.

Get out of your bubble and if you can’t, the least you can do is not drag me into it.