All hail Sir Vidia!

hi all
i remember Naipaul having some unflattering things to say about the IQ of the average Indian woman. I decided to take a shy at one aspect of her behaviour a couple of weeks ago, when Brandon Routh was announced as being Christopher Reeveś successor. Unfortunately, I had the Hindu at the back of my mind and so restricted my verbosity to 800 words. A pity really, I had some nice, caustic remarks to make.

Will the real Superwoman please stand up?

After long deliberations, the mantle of Superman (at least the cinematic version) has found its successor. In which case, speaking in a figurative sense, will the real Superwoman please stand up?

It is a strange, though to socio-anthropologists interesting, fact that whereas Indian culture has managed to throw up a certain number of ‘cultural heroines’, in other words feminine archetypes, the same are conspicuous by their absence in the history of European civilization.

Where do women figure in Caucasian, Greek and Semitic mythology? As Harpies, Valkyries and river nymphs? As witches, priestesses and fortune-tellers? The woman is ever the unknown; the woman is ever the mystery. In consequence, the woman is ever the snare; the woman is ever the temptation.

The mistrust of the feminine character is innate to Semitic religion. It originates with the fanciful tale of Genesis and Eve’s foibles and continues to this day to haunt the fabric of our society. In all of Semitic religion, women are simultaneously vilified as being harbingers of ill-fortune and marginalized as being inept with regard to worldly concerns.

So, with the rise of mass education, where do women seek their archetypes? Of course, in ‘pseudo-men’. Hence Boedicea and Joan of Arc, thus the Amazons and those cartoon superwoman in bikini suits, thereby Halle Berry in a ridiculous leather dress no sane person would be found dead in a ditch in!

The point is that, it is imperative, in the Western ethos, for the feminine principle to be ruthlessly suppressed if an individual is to garner any modicum of respect in society. This particular prejudice is so very deeply and homogeneously ingrained in the Western psyche that any attempts to view it as such are will in all eventuality be viewed as bigoted ravings of chauvinistic puritans.

The mythical Amazons were a tribe of fierce women archers who, to facilitate the pulling of the bow, would cut off their right breasts. This myth, as we shall soon see, is deeply symbolic, and in a way, representative of the argument aforementioned. The price a woman pays for competing in contemporary society is the loss of a very large part of her femininity. “Sacrilege!” scream the ranks of feminists.

And yet, for all the bra-burning of the 1920’s and for all the emancipated life-styles of the 21st century, where is the Superwoman? The successful corporate executive, juggling responsibilities confidently both at home and at work? Is she not yet another Amazon, as a person a self-made hermaphrodite; as an archetype simply a substitute male?

Why? Why is it that in contemporary society, a woman is required to prove herself as being ‘equal to a man’ to attain any semblance of self-worth and societal recognition?

Western society has developed, by virtue of its evolution through incessant warfare, on lines wherein the masculine principle has acquired overwhelming dominance. If a woman chooses to establish her individuality in this phallus-driven society, she must, to use a vulgar but effective analogy, procure a dildo for herself. Such are the rules of the Western game.

The East, it is immediately evident, has attained a more equable equilibrium as regards gender-discrimination in society. This, of course, is a direct consequence of the fact that these civilizations have seen a shorter history of militaristic brutality. It is a fact that the East has managed to reconcile the difference between the sexes and created a much more wholesome paradigm of existence, with regard to gender, than the West. In the bargain, it is devoid of the purely masculine instinct of aggression and in consequence has been imposed upon on the geo-political scene since time immemorial.

China owing to its racially segregated existence for long centuries has probably the most balanced of gender philosophies, as expressed on a very fundamental level by the concept of yin and yang. India, owing to the incessant onslaughts of invaders from the North-West in the past millennium, has begun to acquire some Semitic traits.

But even so, we still retain some civilizational memories of a more sophisticated mode of societal existence. The deities of Knowledge and Wealth, for instance, both passionately sought after and both notoriously fickle, are represented as women. Touché! In Durga, the embodiment of the rage of destruction, the Indian archetype matches the post-Freudian view of the libidinous nature of passion. Of course, even here, the qualities ascribed to the feminine principle are not very flattering to Westernized ears.

But bringing the discussion to more mundane realms, in the light of the aforegoing, it is rather piquant to find Indian women (even more than Indian men) desperately eager to adopt Western modes of lifestyle and expression. If in spite of all, Indian women find the idea of sacrificing their feminity for their individuality appealing; the popular opinion of the meagerness of the feminine intellect will stand profoundly vindicated.