I’m sure you all know of the achievements of Indian women in the Rio Olympics 2016. It was a topic much talked about. Our girls showed us hope when we were left hopeless. They brought us glory when we were left in darkness. And of course, the people of India stood alongside them with pride and encouragement.
Well, most of them.
Amidst social media posts in praise of these amazing women, I noticed a lot of people (men, more than women) questioning why people used the achievement of these women to glorify “girl power” and whether there would be posts about “man power” had a male won a medal.
I don’t know why this is still a matter of debate. After all these years, somehow people still haven’t understood basic logic. Let me explain with the help of an example (courtesy, Gabbie the Youtuber.)
Let us say for example that the following statement is true:
“All humans have 2 eyes.” This is statement number one.
Now, let us consider the following statement to be true:
“Mriganka is a human.” This is statement number two.
We have established that both these statements are true. Now if we add the two statements up- Mriganka is a human. And since we agree that all humans have 2 eyes, we can say that Mriganka has two eyes.
The statement “Mriganka has 2 eyes” in no way translates to me saying that YOU don’t have two eyes. Or that any other person doesn’t have two eyes. Apply the same logic to the issue above.
Consider the following statement- “All humans have power.”
Now consider this statement- “Women are humans.”
By combining these two statements, you’d imply that women have power, because they too are humans, and we already established the fact that all humans have power. Now, that doesn’t mean that men do not have power, or that they’re not as important.
So why do people equate talking about “girl power” to being unfair?
When you have already started on the wrong foot, it takes time to bring things back on track. And since time immemorial women have been put down for not being strong enough, not being good enough, not being powerful enough.
“Don’t play like a girl.”
“Don’t cry like a girl.”
Boys have grown up, learning that these statements are perfectly normal. And you know what, if such issues weren’t happening as of this very minute, no one would emphasize on women the way we do now because we would have achieved gender equality.
But this is still a “current issue”. This is still happening. And that is why we need to talk about it.
Think about it- the spirit of sports is called sports-MAN-ship. The entire human race is called MAN-kind. When women were oppressed for thousands of years, from the time of the earth’s creation to the world today as we know it, it only makes sense to give them an extra push to bring them to the same level as that of the opposite race.
Please understand that this doesn’t mean we want to pull the male race down and oppress them in revenge. It’s high time this was understood.
It angers me so much to see that we’ve come so far, in terms of science and technology yet lack so much in terms of humanity. So much, that I’m literally pounding the keys on my keyboard as I write this piece.
So the next time you see a post about “girl power”, please don’t argue why there are no “man power” posts. Save yourself the trouble because I’ll tell you why.
Yes, there are no posts glorifying the power of men, nor will there be. Because the world has already established that statement to be true (remember the statement logic I spoke about?). Because we have spent the last thousand years doing just that. Because there are no phrases like “Don’t cook like a boy” or any other comparison to an activity that is stereo typically a woman’s skill.
Stop trying to grab attention from an issue that desperately needs it.
Until then, #girlpower it is.
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