The Better Half

I often get the feeling that somewhere, deep down, man knows that woman is stronger and dreads the day when his centuries of carefully wrought oppression will crumble before the fury of her rebellion.

I've always been deeply influenced by mythology and now, when I look back on the stories and lore that were imparted to me as a child, I find that Hindu legends and mythology are teeming with symbolic accounts of the doom that has befallen chauvinistic demons and deities when they dared to inflict injustice upon women. When Jagannatha (the form of Vishnu worshipped in Orissa) and his family had the cheek to insult his consort Lakshmi (the spirit of wealth and abundance), they were reduced to the state of mortal paupers, succored only after paying obeisance to her. The demon Mahishasura, who single-handedly vanquished the (male) troops of heaven, was slain effortlessly by the many armed Durga, embodiment of the sacred female energies that percolate the Universe. The quiet but inexorable rage of Draupadi (who is said to have been an incarnation of Kali) brought about the terrible war of the Mahabharata in which nearly an entire race of chauvinists (according to me, the Kauravas) was wiped out.

Moreover, the stories always bring about the inextricable and crucial duality of male and female energies without which Creation cannot exist. Each male deity has a female Shakti, who is sometimes portrayed as his wife and sometimes as a more abstract entity who is the embodiment of his power (for example, Vishnu's Shakti is Mahamaya and Brahma's Shakti is Brahmini). Without his Shakti, the deity is reduced and his role in the funcitioning of the Universe is incomplete. We see the symbolic form of this concept illustrated most powerfully in the story of the creation of Durga. When the Demon Mahishasura obtained the blessing that no male being would be able to defeat him in battle, he effectively gained immunity from the attack of all the Devas (male deities). They were helpless against him and he easily captured and enslaved them. Reduced to the state of beggars, they asked the Trinity (Brahma Vishnu and Mahesh) for help. These great beings (symbolising the three principles of the Universe i.e. creation, preservation and destruction respectively) in spite their tremendous powers, were unable to slay the demon themselves because they were also males. The solution they devised was to pool their Shaktis together, giving rise to the goddess Durga. When she arose, all the assembled deities realised that she was much more than the sum of the Shaktis of the Trinity. She had fused in herself elements of creation, preservation and destruction and was a thus a representative of the Ultimate power that pervades all that is (which is why she is also called Parabrahmaswaroopini). She was recognised as the Mother and the entire gathering bowed before her, including those that had willed her into existence, and offered her the armour, weapons and adornments with which she destroyed the demon hordes and Mahisha himself.

The point is, this story and countless others make it abundantly clear, albeit symbolically, that the feminine power is not a force to be taken seriously and respected. I think this a fact known across cultures, but conscious awareness of this knowledge has been carefully squashed and suppressed by century upon century of carefully orchestrated actions, by means of which a staggeringly large chunk of humanity literally fails to realise or acknowledge the feminine power.
Somewhere along the line, the man of God became a "man of Men"...elevating the social standing of his sex to an exaggerated state that exists even today and shrouding the role and vitality of the female sex in a blanket of inferiority and pathetically circumscribed gender roles.

This has all been done, because men fear the true uncovered power of a woman...it is spoken of in the legends of Kali and Athene, of Draupadi and Laxmibai and it is seen today in the likes of Kiran Bedi, Medha Patkar, Margaret Thacher, Oprah Winfrey and countless others. From female foeticide to the glass ceiling, the world is filled with the social, political and sometimes sadly religious constructs that try to stop women from realising their power. The good news is, according to my beliefs, that we are moving towards a climax where foolishness and generations worth of deceit will be shattered...women will rise, overthrow the dictatorship of ignorant male despots and establish the harmony of the sexes that is needed to redeem humanity...I look forward to that day most expectantly....