Let me tell you a story. It was the late 1950s, a woman, let's call her Midge, meets a guy in college named Joel, they fall in love and get married. Fast forward to four years later, Midge is an extremely doting housewife and Joel works in a corner glass cabin at his uncle's firm. The couple has two kids, and they all live in a posh penthouse just a few floors above where Midge's very Jewish parents live. Midge would help Joel with his passion for stand-up comedy, and pretty much
anything he needs. Seems like a pretty perfect life right? That's what Midge thought too. Turns out it was all a lie. Joel got the job because his father forced his uncle, they had the posh house because Joel's father gifted it to him. Even the supposed passion he had for stand-up turned out to be a flop since he stole all his jokes from famous comics. The worst part...Joel has an affair with his secretary, Penny Pan. And since he had passion yet no talent in the art nor did he put any hard work behind it, stand-up dream fails. After all that, 'HE' got devastated because of everything, 'HE' felt like Midge was holding him back, so he left. Left his wife and two toddler kids behind. Now this is the initial premise of the first season of the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, a brilliant show I'll highly recommend. I want to know just one thing, in all of this. What was Midge's fault? What did Midge do wrong? There is just one answer to this...Nothing. And even though she comes out of this stronger than ever and her empowering journey actually begins after all that. But still...
Midge did nothing wrong. She did what the society expected of her, she was an extremely doting, caring, docile housewife, a sweet stay-at-home mother. Exactly what society wanted her to be. It was Joel who failed, Joel who destroyed their life, Joel who broke everything. And despite all this, the society and the people blamed Midge, for being a great wife and mother but her husband cheating on her and leaving her. Now you would say, but Soumya, that was the 1950s, that was the norm back in the day. Well if it just stayed back in the day, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. I have seen this in so many shows that is supposedly present day portrayals.
Example, A Turkish show, 'Fatmagül'ün Suçu Ne?' literally translated to, 'What is Fatmagül's fault?' has been adapted into three different languages of the world that I know of, English, Hindi and Spanish. It is about a woman being raped by three men and what 'SHE' has to face. She is questioned, she is hackled, her character is questioned, when all she wants is justice, is it too much to ask? While men almost get away with everything, because the society was too busy looking for the girl's fault. And this same story has been told in four different languages in so many countries. Why? Because it resonates true to just about the entire population of the world. Because it is nothing if not the truth.
Somewhere in the show in season one of Ms. Maisel, Midge is mean to Joel and refuses him and I saw comments about that scene saying "Wow that was bitter, Joel paid for what he did, she could at least be polite and civil" in response to that I would say that 'NO! Hell No!' I don't even care if he paid or not (he didn't from where I am standing) you might forgive him, I might forgive him but Midge should never forgive him, she has the right to hold that grudge her whole life. If she wants to be mean to him at 60 year of age, hell yeah she should be. Because what happened, happened to her, you are no one to tell her to get over it. It's up to her to let it go and entirely up to her to not be civil with him or wanna be near him. She should have the complete right to hold a grudge, the right to be bitter.
This is not something men would be asked, would they? To get over it. Because one they are already over it since they felt so little for the other person or they suppressed it all down, which is not healthy or just because 'he is man, he just needs a whisky and another woman'. Such bullshit, why are women not told the same? And it won't be wrong if I say "You can hurt a woman's heart...but you can hurt a man's heart and ego at the same time...and then you say women are weak". So stop telling any woman to let it go or get over it, she will when she wants to, especially in situations like this where she deserved so much better. It's bloody double-standard on top of everything. Also this pitting women against women is getting so freaking old, it angers me to no bounds.
One of the reason this stuck in my mind was because, nothing changed, did it? What I talked about was a pretty micro topic. I'm not even talking about oppression and what absolute hell most women face every single day. Let's not even get into the developing or narrow-minded countries (that is a conversation of another time) because when an International superpower like the United States of America felt like it had to chain their women up then talking about third world countries would be foolish. Most of American states have banned abortion. It is a damn shame. Countries brag and celebrate giving the right to vote to women as well as the right to drive. What's next? we're gonna celebrate giving women the right to breathe? Rights to exist?
The point is, you are gonna take away a woman's right to abort? On what ground? That it is like taking life? It's not, I for one am a very practical person and what's inside a woman's womb for at least a few months, is a fetus and not a baby yet. And are you really gonna give this excuse to a sixteen-year-old who was young and stupid and can't even drive or cook or has a job much less take care of another human being? Or to a rape victim? Or just a normal, healthy and married woman who just does not want a kid? It's not about that though, is it? This is a matter of consent. Not to be crass but when you damn well need consent of the woman for anything that goes in her or over her, then you very well need permission of the woman for the painfully huge creature that comes out of her.
As my friend very gracefully told me about a dark family guy joke about an abortion clinic which is just a diving platform where women climb and jump to get abortion, it's tiny bit exaggerated and hella dark but doesn't mean it's not a very true satire. Honestly if men had to give birth, abortion clinics would be more frequent than Starbucks in New York City, at every single corner. This is just such bullshit. Recently I read a news article about how prisoners in the process of execution have filed a petition in the court about how the women attending wear short skirts which shouldn't be allowed. Like What the fuck? Even considering this a petition is more ridiculous than anything I have ever heard. Like wearing short skirt is more sinful according to society than murderers, cannibals, serial killers and rapists and these worst of the human kind would tell a woman what to wear what what not to?...Now that I think about it, I would not be surprised if that actually happens. This is the state we are in as a society and as people. The world keeps changing, maybe it did change for comparatively better for a little time but sometimes I wonder, maybe not, maybe at the same time it keeps changing for the worst.
There are so many things happening in the world, people are at each other's throats, fighting with each other about religion, nations, race, color, fucking up climate, going against women at every level, just humans verses humans, so fucking much that it's honestly quite suffocating to think about.
Women were treated like shit back in the day as far as human history goes and nothing much has changed since the stone age to this digital age. Historical shows are definitely on point about the history of women. But present and future...well shows like Handmaid's tale and other dystopian shows are not very far off, but just a little exaggerated version of the present and what we are in for in the future. The line between people like Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein or Rush Limbaugh's sexist comments and deeds against women and the "Blessed be the fruit", is so much more thinner than we would like to think.