Honestly to a great extent I would say . It’s the fact that we at some point in our life or you can even say in our everyday life point out, judge a girl and contribute to the encouragement of patriarchy. There are two ways in how we actually are upholding patriarchal norms :-
To bully someone .
Let someone bully us.
We always forget that we as women are actually judging other girls , commenting on their figure and making fun of them , cringing at their outfits and the way they walk, slutshame them , body shame someone and list goes on and on .
The root of this problem lies towards the source from where these thoughts come from. Our childhood is actually rooted with patriarchal norms. How ? It’s very easy .
We get these thoughts from our mothers , grandmothers , aunts, sisters and so on.We have always been taught by our mothers to be laid back, to compromise, to be weak before a man ,to endure and to lower ourselves and let men trample over us. Just take an instance of a simple scenario of dinner. In every household we see male family members are served first and then when they finish women it. Why can’t it happen that everyone eats together? I still remember the days that my naani always said to me that a woman should always be behind and let the man be ahead of her because this is how a married life can be happy.
It’s not common that we all have received this kind of dialogues from our granny, aunties and everyone. Let’s not overlook the fact that according to their ideal lady image they always advise us and tell us that an ideal lady tries to keep family together and also sacrifices her happiness for her family. She thinks about her family first and then thinks about herself.In short according to them an ideal lady will always be someone who will think for everyone other than herself.
Since we have all been listening to this since our childhood we forget our actions.
Sadly everyone of us gossip and comment about each other, body shame , slutshame , point on character ,way of walking , fashion etc , etc. Ohhhh!!!
When it comes to gossiping, how can we forget our dearest neighbouring aunties in our societies who are like CCTV cameras capturing every moment. And spreading illogical rumors and giving free and illogical advice on how we should live our life.
Nonetheless thus we all know that we are somewhere promoting these norms. So why not start thinking and acting maturely.
Let’s just improve ourselves as a society. Let’s create a non-. Judgmental society for us and our upcoming future generations. To all the mothers out there teach your child to respect every woman and of its girl child teach her to live with her head high.