I have decided to write about
sexism in the Indian Epics. This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart.
I have taken many women and gender studies courses, and am a huge proponent of
certain feminist ideals. As I was reading the Ramayana there were countless
instances of male bias, but I found two in particular that I want to use.
Firstly, Sita’s return to Rama after she had been abducted. Sita had done
NOTHING wrong, and yet she was met with hesitation and judgment when she met
her husband. She had abstained from any behavior that would have compromised her
marriage, even though that would have made her life much easier. She was the
epitome of a kind and nurturing wife, and yet even she was met with harshness
after all the trials she went through. Another example is Ahalya. She was
submitting to her husband, whom she had no idea was a stranger until halfway
through, and once she found out it was too late and she continued to be raped.
Instead of consoling his wife, her husband turned her to stone for centuries,
after which time she was told to go submit to her husband again, that her past
had been forgotten. HER past. I cannot imagine that there is not similar male
bias in the other epic we will study.
The first
storytelling style that interested me was possibly doing a therapy session
between a therapist and Sita. I have not decided who would be the therapist.
Sita would be traumatized from her trials during her kidnapping and would tell
the therapist of her story and then the therapist would console her and tell
her of other women in the same situation
The second
storytelling style was to reincarnate Rama and let him try to treat Sita in a
new form like he does her in the Ramayana., and do the same thing with all the
other couples in the three other stories I do. I think I could have a lot of
fun with a modern version of these stories, and let ancient male bias take on
the modern lady.
A third
idea was to have all the women who were shown male bias be in a support group
and send letters to one another explaining their tales and how it affected them
and just let them vent to each other and support each other. This probably
would be an emotional style, as I would bring out the women’s inner feelings
that they could only reveal to someone who had been in the same situation as
them.
Finally, I could
do the classic beauty salon setting. What better place would there be to vent
about male bias then at a beauty salon? I think I would begin with Sita walking
in and telling the owner that she needed a new hairdo for her blind date
tonight. Obviously then the other women would ask what happened to Rama, and
she could tell them the rocky story of their undoing due to his chauvinistic
ego. This could be a lot of fun as well.
Rama and Ahalya, from the studio of Raja Ravi Varma. You can see Ahalya at the very moment that she is emerging from the stone.
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