Essay on Indian Society (Negative Viewpoint)

Women behind Cultural and Traditional Bars “I feel terrible for the women in the trivial Indian society”, a foreigner may exclaim, visiting India when she sees a woman being hit by her husband in public. “They don’t seem to have an option but just accept the circumstances of their sad situation and get accustomed to it”, might state another foreigner as she observes and critically analyses the situation of the women in the society while going around the small dilapidated villages where the women are working and taking care of their young ones while their husbands portray the qualities of being drunkard, bullying individuals. One may ask why does this happen? Why don’t women stand up for their own rights and take control of their own situation? Why don’t they leave their husbands and seek for something better? What are the causes that lead to this effect of the people from other countries looking down upon the Indians as a backward society filled with women being victimized to such traumatic tortures by their husbands all the time? The cause lies within the Indian culture. The Indian Culture is unjust to the woman because it teaches the society that a woman can never be a boon to the family or society, forces the women to work from an early age to be domestic slaves and if they are treated wrongly, it is their duty to accept the excuses their husbands blame them for the unfair treatment that they receive. The culture portrays that a girl child can’t ever be a blessing as the traditions teach that when a woman gets married – the family of the girl has to give a certain sum of money which may range from thousands to millions to the husband’s family – a system called as “dowry”. In actual reality, this system is eradicated by the government of the country but shamefully this kind of violence against women is still an ongoing practice, even among the educated elites as observed by Almosaed who states that “violence increases among the educated and professional classes” (2012, p.203). Dowry is a necessity if a woman has to be married and due to this system of dowry, the family symbolizes the birth of a girl child as a “burden”. If the woman is unable to meet the demands of her husband’s expectations of dowry then the consequences maybe severe just like Nora Almosaed points out that “Traditions feed the practice of ‘dowry death’, in which a woman is harassed, threatened, or abused, and in extreme cases killed or driven to suicide because she is unable to meet her husband’s or in-laws demands for dowry and addictions to it” (2012, p.203). Furthermore, it is acceptable for the men of the family to expect women to overwork for them. The woman must obey the man. She must accept and reform her behavior just like the way he wants. If he is displeased, he treats her badly - this is a tradition hallmark which dates back generations in the Indian culture. The Indian society accepts the dominance of the man, if anything wrong is done to the woman- the woman is to be blamed but not the man. Often, when a marriage fails – the blame is always upon women just as Khan states in her culture that “[the society] wouldn’t see that…there was something wrong with the men…No matter what the men were like, the girls had failed” (2012, p.221). The expectations from a woman and the views on how a woman is treated in the society and the practice of the women being victimized for every fault that the man does, must be completely eradicated, if the Indian culture and socity wants to be taken in a positive outlook by the western media and its people.

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References Al Mosaed, N. (2012). Violence against women. In A. Shine et al. (Eds.), Majlis of the ‘Others.” (pp. 200-211). Essex, UK: Pearson Education Limited.

Khan, S. (2012). Mirror,mirror on the wall,who’s the fairest of them all? In A. Shine et al. (Eds.), Majlis of the ‘Others.” (pp. 215-220). Essex, UK: Pearson Education Limited.

References: Al Mosaed, N. (2012). Violence against women. In A. Shine et al. (Eds.), Majlis of the ‘Others.” (pp. 200-211). Essex, UK: Pearson Education Limited. Khan, S. (2012). Mirror,mirror on the wall,who’s the fairest of them all? In A. Shine et al. (Eds.), Majlis of the ‘Others.” (pp. 215-220). Essex, UK: Pearson Education Limited.