Start Holding Men Responsible For Their Mistakes Instead Of Blaming Women For Them!

Why can’t we start telling men to be responsible for themselves, instead of blaming women for everything that goes wrong in their lives?

When I started living in PG accommodation, we all had a few stories in common. The stories of an aunt who had a love marriage without her family’s consent and how no one spoke to her anymore.

Those of uncles who fought for property or separated from the family after they got married mainly due to their wife’s inability to adjust.

That of Jennifer Aniston and BradAngelina or the Dharmendra and Hema Malini love triangle. You are either a woman who couldn’t ‘keep your husband’ or someone who snatched another’s husband.

Rekha and her husband – the woman who drove him to supposedly kill himself.

Parveen Babi – the woman who ‘went crazy.’

Sridevi, Konkona Sen Sharma – the women who got pregnant without being married.

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Why is it so easy to blame women?

A woman has pregnancy issues – she shouldn’t have taken the medicines.

Whenever we hear stories of any sexual assault, we most definitely have heard people say, ‘Why did she go out after the dark? She was wearing ‘provocative’ clothes.’

If there is an age difference between a couple (Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor) – the woman is most definitely considered a gold-digger.

Now let’s analyse some of these stories the way conventional media in India never will.

If a girl marries according to her choice, there is a man involved. It is their personal choice.

In most cases, you cannot simply force one person to do something as big as leaving their family. Dig deeper and try to understand that person’s nature before you get married to him.

Just stop blaming women!

Men, in most Indian families, are usually incredibly pampered and the more privileged ones. They are free to do whatever they want to and a lot more. In such cases, if a man wants to live away from his family, it is his choice – he isn’t usually forced into doing it.

At the same time, if a couple decides to live away from their family, it is probably because they don’t want to deal with the constant nagging. They both can be tired of being constantly scrutinised and asked questions about their lives. And I totally understand that.

If a man leaves his wife and has an affair with someone else, really how is it the woman’s fault? Why are the women the ones being blamed – whether it is his wife/girlfriend or the woman he cheated with? Brad Pitt kept cheating on Jennifer Aniston with multiple women but we never blame him for it. We seem to only be talking about the women in his life.

Why do we only blame women for ‘driving men’ to kill themselves? Remember Jiah Khan? No one talks about her last letter or the fact that she was forced to abort her child, which could possibly be one of the reasons for her suicide. Aren’t we basically saying that a woman’s suicide was because she was mad but a man killing himself is because a woman pushed him to it? What is this world we are living in?

How are we okay with all this?

There was a time when people had arranged marriages and the age gaps between the couple were probably 10-15 years. Even today, in a lot of arranged marriages, the age gap between the couple is five years or so. However, if a woman chooses to marry a man older than her, we think of it as a sin. And if she ‘dares’ to marry someone younger, she is called all other different names!

In a lot of countries across the world, women are still not allowed to have abortions even if they are survivors of rape. They aren’t allowed to abort unless society is involved, basically, they have no choice. But guess what? A major part of society is okay with female foeticide and infanticide, despite it being illegal.

Not to forget, women having sex before marriage is a big taboo, thanks to the societal construct of virginity. We really seem to love mythological and societal concepts more than reality. Also, can a woman really get pregnant herself?

None of this is their fault at all!

Women ‘shouldn’t’ go out after dark because they might be attacked by men. They can’t wear what they want, because a man might be ‘provoked’ into doing something. How about we actually try to control our men? Teach them to respect women? That is the easier way, isn’t it?

Moving on to birth control. In our country, even condom ads portray nothing but sex instead of having information about diseases and family planning. And since sex is such a taboo in the second most populated country in the world, even medicine shop owners behave weirdly when someone asks them for condoms.

Not to forget that a lot of entitled men don’t even want to use condoms, forcing their partners to use contraceptive pills which have several side-effects. Quite often, when men have certain issues, it is always the woman who is blamed. I doubt this problem will be solved any time soon.

Start holding men responsible!

Finally, let’s talk about these gold-digging women. Can you give me a reason for a financially independent woman to be a gold-digger? If you say alimony (the money a person gets after divorce), how would you justify dowry? You may be able to justify alimony but can you really justify the horrors women face if they refuse to give dowry?

Women are called gold-diggers because they refuse to have sex with someone or ask someone to pay for them. Maybe you need to stop expecting her to have sex with you for buying things for her or taking her out!

Why can’t we start telling men to be responsible for their own selves, instead of blaming women for everything that goes wrong in their lives? Also, women, don’t be the women who hate on other women!

We all need to learn to take responsibility for our own actions and stop blaming a certain gender! Let’s all live and let live, shall we?

Picture credits: Still from FilterCopy’s video on YouTube

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