The Womb Jeopardy

Today I will take you all to a place where we all have stayed for more than 9 months without paying any rent. It was our first home. In fact, it was the best home.

Womb is from where we all have come from. I’m yet to meet somebody who have come out of ground or have fallen from the skies (except in mythologies). Yet we are prone to forget where we’ve come from (admit it, we do have amnesia when it comes to significant matters).

1. Let’s go to the Womb. In womb something is being created which didn't pre-exist in its actual form. Womb is the locale where the formless and disordered particles assemble to form structured and living lump of flesh. Womb is where life is created. Womb is where reality comes into being. Womb harbours the most beautiful music in the world - the heart beat of a baby.
2. But the sad part is (in many Indian places) though this womb belongs to a woman, she is given no right over it. Child in the womb belongs to her but she has no right over it. If the child has same gender of the one carrying it, the child loses its right to exist and the woman loses her right to preserve it. The continuing authority of patriarchy has ensured that no womb-carrier gets the authorization to exercise her rights.
3. Still in India in some places, if at all a girl child takes birth, she has to face the threat of female infanticide. Suppose, the woman somehow gives birth to a child and it turns out to be a girl, the misery begins there. Misery starts with the lack of basic necessities like food, clothing, etc... She is bound to sustain herself with her child labour by going to the field along with her mother, or by helping her mother in the household work, or by looking after the siblings when she has grown up. When she has grown up, she has to face the demand of dowry. When she goes to the house of her in-laws after meeting the demand of dowry, her misery never ends. The torture and the cruelty are with her throughout her life. One cannot know whether she can live her full life or not. Nobody would know when she might have to face an unnatural death. Her misery does not end there. Many a wombs die without fulfilling its dreams. Many a wombs fails to wake up to reality after being stricken by whip of terror. What I want to say is a woman faces atrocities of some kind or the other at every stage of her life.
4. Well, if we have any sense of shame then we should also know this: 7 million girl children are killed every year; Nearly 12 million Indian children are married off before the age of 10 years; In India a woman is reportedly raped every 15 minutes. 92 women raped every day; 37,000 reported rapes per year; Every 2 minutes a woman is victimized in India; more than 57,311 cases of kidnapping and abduction of women every year. As many as 2.24 million crimes against women were reported over the past decade: 26 crimes against women are reported every hour, or one complaint every two minutes.
5. Cruelty by husbands and relatives under section 498‐A of Indian Penal Code (IPC) is the major crime committed against women across the country, with 909,713 cases reported over the last 10 years, or 10 every hour. Assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty (470,556), earlier classified as molestation under section 354 of IPC, is the second-most-reported crime against women over the last decade. Kidnapping and abduction of women (315,074) is the third-most-reported crime followed by rape (243,051), insult to modesty of women (104,151) and dowry death (80,833). Andhra Pradesh has reported the most crimes against women (263,839) over the past 10 years and is followed by West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala etc...
6. Well, do you think religions didn’t do anything for women? Yes, they did! I will reduce it into a quote from Madalyn Murray O'Hair, “religion has ever been anti-life, anti-peace, anti-reason, anti-science, anti-human and anti-woman.” Why did I say so? Here are some verses from different scriptures:

• The Mahabharata, Book 13 Section 40 (13.40), states, “There is no creature more sinful, than woman. She is poison, she is snake.” Other texts say that “Women are living lies.”
• Quran 4:34 – “Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded.”
• Orthodox Jewish Morning Prayer: Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who did not make me a Gentile, who did not make me a Slave, who did not make me a Woman.
• 1 Timothy 2: 11-15 – “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.”

7. Society has tried to suppress women. Religion has done its best. Politics have done what patriarchy dictated to it, to a great extent. But she seems to not budge. How is it? Well, my first example is your cell phone or computer itself. Everything works by a programming language or code. The first person to write a code (an algorithm intended to be carried by the first modern computer) for the Analytical Engine created by Charles Babbage (the father of computing) was a woman Ada Lovelace.

Let’s have a look at few outstanding women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815 – 1902) was pioneer of women’s rights movement. The famous Rosa Parks (1913 -2005) was an American civil rights leader who began a revolution.

Lise Meitner's work in nuclear physics led to the discovery of nuclear fission - where atomic nuclei split in two.  This laid the groundwork for the atomic bomb.

Chien-Shiung Wu was one of the most important physicists of the 20th Century. She participated in the development of the atom bomb, as part of the Manhattan Project. What I mean is that, she not only knows to “create” but to “destroy” as well.

8. Now the matter of fact is that: men oppress women, men oppress men too. Women oppress men and women oppress women too. When women gets oppressed by another women this is "double-oppression". Any mode taken to oppress are wrong, be it anybody. We are therefore called to stand up for the oppressed women, to stand for their rights and to work towards the execution of justice.
9. Let me take you to the Scriptures again:

The Hadith Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal states so: “The Prophet Muhammad said, may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him: Your Heaven lies under the feet of your mother.”

Coming to The Bible: We all are familiar with the story of Prophet Jonah. The chapter 2 of Jonah describes the great sea creature which swallowed the prophet. The prophet stays in its belly for 3 days. As for the 3 times the species of this creature is mentioned (1st, 2nd and 11th verses), in the 1st verse it is stated as dag (mas.) , in the 2nd verse it is stated as dagah (fem.) and in the 11th verse it is stated as dag (mas.) again. A feminist reading of this text suggests that, though there is no necessity of changing the gender of creature in the 2nd verse, it has been done so as emphasize feminine aspect of preservation, compassion and mercy. The word for “womb” in Hebrew and Arabic comes from the root "Racham" which means "Mercy".

Coming to the Hindu mythology my favourite discourse is what Chitrangada (mother of Babruvahana) has said to Arjun. She said, “I do not want to be worshipped nor to be ignored but I want you to take me along with you so that you will see what my potential is. I want to have my place.”

10. I will end with a quote by Beatrix D'Souza:  “atrocities on women cannot be stopped and if they can be stopped, it can only be by women. The system has to be changed and the system can be changed only through women. Men are warned here that the hand that rocks the cradle can rock the system.”
11. I should admit that I've failed in standing up for the rights of oppressed women rather than sharing few Facebook posts and giving paltry speeches. But I also feel that, realizing the mistake is the beginning of a change. This is a call for all of us to bring change in the lives of people wherever we are now and in the future. Let every womb be protected so that from it will come a new generation which will stand up for others.
    
    

Thank you.

ABSHALOM