“Rishabh, you need to control your wife. She can’t go to meet her parents so frequently. Every time we bring up this topic she tells us how her parents need her. And, she can’t leave them alone just because she is married!
She can’t talk to us like that. You have pampered her so much that she does things that she wants to, without thinking what society will say! You need to rein her.”
As I overhear my mother-in-law telling my husband to control me, I was disappointed and angry. My educated and modern in-laws telling my husband to learn how to control me – his wife – didn’t only disgust me, but also made me wonder how they perceive me. It is really heartbreaking that even in the 21st-century men are being raised to control women – as if we are an object or livestock they own and need to be control!
Thankfully, my husband took a stand against her parents’ rudimentary thought process. He told them I am free to do things that please me and I am not an object to be controlled.
But, this whole conversation left me sad and heartbroken. It is sad how even so-called progressive and modern people believe that women need to be controlled!
But this is not just my reality. It’s a reality of millions of women who are fighting against the regressive society that preaches its men to control women. In a country, where women are abused every second, do we really need to raise our men to control women? In a country where women are not free to walk alone in broad daylight, do we really need to tell our men to control their wives?
Rather than telling men to control women, why don’t we tell them to control themselves?
Why don’t we raise them to control their anger rather than using women as their punching bags? Why don’t we raise them to control their sexual drives rather than unleashing the sex-deprived monsters on women and young kids? Why don’t we raise our men to control their abusive behaviors? Why don’t we tell them to treat women with equality rather than making them victims of their abuse?
In the times, when women are striving hard for equality at home and at the office, it is a matter of shame that even the educated segment of society still believe that we are men’s property. The day we would stop telling our men that they own women and they need to control them, we will take the first step to build a safer and better country. While our women suffer, I hope that day will come soon!
For the last time dear society, we, women, aren’t cattle or some piece of property that men own! We are living beings with our own desires and dreams. So, please stop raising your sons to control us!