On the way to work, I was listening to one of those mindless RJ chatters on radio. The RJ was introducing a work by Shishir Kunder, a Bollywood director/producer. Then added with venom coursing through the sentence ‘of course Shishir’s only claim to fame is being Farah Khan’s husband’. You could almost feel the smirk on the RJ’s face.
A smirk which would have disappeared fast had I been able to grab her through the radio waves and give her a tight slap.
I just don’t get it. What is wrong if the wife is more famous/successful than the husband? Somehow, it is acceptable for the man to be the more successful partner. It is assumed that the wife will be content with consolation-prize statements like ‘behind every successful man is a woman’. Turn the tables, and everyone, including women, is laughing at the man.
Does that mean that men will inherently have to marry someone dumber than they are so that they are not outshined?
Does that mean that women will have to marry someone smarter, with better education and more career prospects, so that they don’t outshine their partner?
And despite all this careful planning, if the woman ends up more successful than her partner, then is their marriage doomed to failure?
If a female RJ in a city like Mumbai, who caters to a huge urban population, can come up with these statements, then it shows a dim possibility of us moving to a more equitable society.
On the other hand, it is always possible that RJ may just have been desperately trying to get a few laughs in her not-so-funny chatter by throwing in some stale jokes.
A smirk which would have disappeared fast had I been able to grab her through the radio waves and give her a tight slap.
I just don’t get it. What is wrong if the wife is more famous/successful than the husband? Somehow, it is acceptable for the man to be the more successful partner. It is assumed that the wife will be content with consolation-prize statements like ‘behind every successful man is a woman’. Turn the tables, and everyone, including women, is laughing at the man.
Does that mean that men will inherently have to marry someone dumber than they are so that they are not outshined?
Does that mean that women will have to marry someone smarter, with better education and more career prospects, so that they don’t outshine their partner?
And despite all this careful planning, if the woman ends up more successful than her partner, then is their marriage doomed to failure?
If a female RJ in a city like Mumbai, who caters to a huge urban population, can come up with these statements, then it shows a dim possibility of us moving to a more equitable society.
On the other hand, it is always possible that RJ may just have been desperately trying to get a few laughs in her not-so-funny chatter by throwing in some stale jokes.
5 comments:
The times are a changing. But um, not fast enough, clearly.
Sigh..things like this (even if small and seemingly petty), that make me wonder if there is any hope for us to have an equitable society?
I wonder if people in the public domain even think about what they are saying...or do they deliberately use their profession/status to vent out their own prejudices?
hAAthi - True. And I keep picking on all these little things to rant about hoping somehow it leads to a small change :)
Aparna - Good point. They must surely be aware of how many people they are reaching/influencing..
You know, some of us blokes who are thrilled about their wives being more successful. Especially if they're more financially successful. How else are blokes like me going to retire at 40, and lie around reading books and sipping rum all day?
byker7 - Totally! Possibly the rest of the world is so jealous with the retirement plan that they make these bitchy remarks about the bloke.
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