Women Are Not Born With Submission And Tolerance Coded In Their Genes. Certainly Not Me!

Submission and tolerance in women is not inherent, as much as a feeling of supremacy in men is not. It is time we stopped defending these ignorant stereotypes!

We lose our sense of self very early in life. From a very early age we are taught how being social is essential for survival, how important it is to prioritize other’s wishes before ours.

Learnt in childhood

“Smile more”, “Don’t laugh loudly”, “walk delicately”, “Don’t ask so many questions”, “Talk less”, “If you want to keep a relationship, you must tolerate some things. Develop patience towards another person”.

Mistakes I made

Being a lonely child, I was always prone to look for affection outside. But this formula of passivity fed into my naive mind by everyone in the society made me succumb to a psychological condition where I, for the longest time, kept genuinely believing that it is love when a man dominates me. I wanted to be adored and pampered, and devoid of a father figure all my life, I kept looking for a man who ordered me, protected me – because that is the social fabric I grew up with.

My social conditioning was ‘women have to be docile’ but my blood has always been angry. So after plenty of adjustments with dominance, I rebelled strongly. And since I rebelled after keeping quiet for a long time, people around me believed that I was being unreasonable. The men in my life were given sympathies by my own people because I was known to be ruthless while breaking up. It looked as if I let them rule over me and suddenly one day I decided they cannot.

I blamed myself too for the longest time. Apologized profusely for my failed relations. Was tremendously impacted mentally. It isn’t easy to blame yourself day and night, and then hear your close ones say “You should have adjusted some more perhaps”. It is a destructive thought.

A flawed idea of love

Until one fine day I sat and contemplated. I thought about how everything that went before was ignored. How was my idea of being loved so flawed since the beginning? How was their idea of loving someone also so flawed? Did I not give them enough chances? Did I get any? Do you HAVE to give chances? Doesn’t that depend on who you as a person are?

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Woman = Tolerant is WRONG!

Women are NOT psychologically tolerant. They are conditioned to be so since the day they are born. They are conditioned to think they need protection. They are conditioned to think that a loving boyfriend/husband means one who is possessive and orders them around.

Women who defend domestic violence as “husband has a right to hit me” have been conditioned to think that way. Getting hit by someone, and taking pride in that is NOT how women are born by default. They have been told this by everyone. They have seen this being practised by their elders around them. Similarly, the opposite conditioning happens for men. And when men don’t satisfy their social conditioning, they are called ‘joru ka gulam’ and some such atrocious things.

Darwin’s theories are being reevaluated. Role of conditioning in brain development is being studied. So please stop defending supremacy of men as their inherent ability, and stop defending submission of women as theirs. It is extremely, pathetically idiotic to generalize this whole thing. It has ruined lives and relationships.

Published first on the author’s Facebook page.

Image source: shutterstock

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