‘No means no’: Really?
Only few days are left for the Valentine’s Day to arrive. Men who are in love are ready to propose and admit their undying love to the women of their choice. And the women? As per societal norm, they must stay passive and wait for the man to approach them. If they already like a man, they have no choice but to wait till he fights his laziness, gathers up courage and proposes her. And even if he does propose her, she must not say ‘yes’ at once. She has to act shy and coy and refuse his first approach and create the chase (even if she likes him). In case she fails to follow this patriarchal rule, she will be judged as desperate and of low value. This reminds me of some plots from the movie ‘Aradhana’ where we find Rajesh Khanna singing “Mere sapno ki rani kab aayegi tu” while the shy but interested Sharmila Tagore smiles but at the same time acts uninterested. In another plot the hero sings the song- “Bagon mein bahar hain? …..Tumko mujhse pyaar hain?” and the heroine replies “Na na na”. “Na” literally means “No”. Period. But in the movie did they want to portray that the heroine meant ‘no’? As you all know, in that scene, “No” meant “Yes, but you need to chase me more”. It is acceptable for the man to chase the woman, stalk her and even blackmail her (as done to Basanti in the movie Sholay) into saying ‘Yes’. But what about a woman admitting her love for a man??? It is utterly shameful, shocking and less feminine according to men. I remember once I had quite innocently asked one of my male relatives
that while both men and women fall in love, why should only the man
make the first approach? I still remember his reply “When you are going to a
shop to buy a dress, do you choose the dress or the dress chooses you?” I was
taken aback by his answer. Women compared to dress: objects, rather passive
objects of display. This is still the mindset of most men. While we have the
uterus to give birth to a child, we have not been granted the basic right to
freely choose whose child we want to give birth to. You may say that the woman
can reject a proposal if she doesn’t like the man. Yes, she can but I would
like to mention three points here. Firstly, a woman’s ‘No’ is often not
accepted as true rejection and the man might try even harder to convince her. It
is rather difficult for a man to accept rejection. How dare she? Secondly, once
the fragile ego of the man has been tampered upon, will he cry and move on like
girls do? No. He would try to take revenge by spreading rumors about her
character, stalk her, threat her, throw acid bulbs at her, rape her or even
kill her. Thirdly, women are already in a disadvantageous position when it
comes to choice. Her list of choices has been narrowed down to the men who
approached her. A man can freely approach any girl of their choice without
thinking if she likes him or not. The entire world is his territory. For a
woman, she either has to stay passive and patiently wait for a man (whom she
may not even like) to approach her or make ‘body gestures’ to give him the hint
to approach her. But she must not make the initial move, otherwise battle lost.
So she has to stuff her real feelings inside because society encourages her to
be less vocal about her wishes and desires.
