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The concept of spaces governs part of what constitutes one’s identity in the contemporary world. The intangible zones that one passes through in the course of his or her daily pertaining to one’s private and public life make up a major part of what the modern society has so surreptitiously been divided into. It takes effort to realise that the spaces we encounter in modern society are gendered. In spite of the fact that the divides that women and men encounter everyday are so starkly visible and affect persons of all age groups. Even in an urban and supposedly more independent scenario, the divide only makes its presence more clearly felt.

In order to gain a better view of this ‘divide’, one needs only to assess the numbers of women and men present in what most see as the ‘public domain’. In professional circles, in spite of the limited penetration by women, the perception of an office is still that of being a male dominated zone. Hiring authorities too, at times have been observed to take the view of women being more of the ‘temporary’ employee kind. Women frequently find themselves part of a set up that is inherently ‘accommodating’. It accommodates them as being something from outside. As something that does not belong in the system. There are the various ‘ladies’ and ‘gents’ categories in public spaces that prove the point. Separate rows of seats or compartments in public transport systems, and separate queues, all in a way giving the stamp of approval to the way society treats women and men as separate and classifiable entities.

Perhaps this is the reason why more violent cases of discrimination like rape and physical violence are easily given the tag of ‘perverted’. This goes to show that, for some reason, the gendered public spaces escape everyone’s attention when it comes to placing the blame for such ‘aberrant’ behaviour. As an editorial in the Times of India, dated October 28, 2003 says,

By treating rape as an isolated instance, it becomes possible to pin the blame on aberrant male sexuality and ignore rape as a systemic and political form of violence against all women. It allows planners to ignore the fact that public spaces are gendered, and the city is divided into sexualised zones that are seen as permissible spaces.

As things stand now, the stereotypes that govern the way women are seen in private spaces are also reflected in the reception they receive when they ‘venture’ out of the male dominated public sphere. The concept of the ‘feminine’ figure being alien to the ‘outside world’ has received ample attention by writers. Krishna Mazumdar, commenting on how Saratkumari, and Krishnabhabini Das, both nineteenth century Bengali voices from the more confined side of the divide saw women’s position in the society. She says,

Saratkumari argues that education has in fact made better home-makers of women than before, besides making them compatible wives. Girindra-mohini Dasi goes a step further in defence of women’s education saying’ …there is need for the wealth of knowlege and noble learning in order to live one’s life fully,’ and asks, ‘Have women been created only to suckle a child and to be a slave to men?’ As she demolishes all the reasons put forward to deny women education, she insists that given the same training and education, women can also achieve what men have, and concludes with the conviction that ‘the improved condition of women may lead men to enjoy the happiness and hope of unity between equals’.

Mazumdar quotes Krishnabhabini Das,

It is because they are thus shut out that they are not ‘courageous, strong and self-reliant’. The subjugation of women is what stands in the way of her true development and will happen only when women are free to go out into the world. Anything of what these nineteenth century representatives of womankind from educated Bengali families have said would fit without much struggle into the framework of today’s gender space scenario.

That there are domains in public space where the presence of a woman is well nigh impossible is not the point. The point is that these spaces do not officially disallow a woman’s presence. It is the general perception of that space that keeps it from being woman-friendly. A place like a public theatre or a bus stop for that matter, which are theoretically universally accessible, do not appear as space-indifferent as they would be expected to be. While a man can usually be seen getting comfortable in spaces outside the home, a woman still has to do a bit of the ‘keeping to herself’ act outside the home space. The outside world, in spite of having seen what appear as radical progressions in the general direction of an unbiased world, does not seem to be all that embracing of the feminine presence. The proverbial ‘extra mile’ is still to be walked.

technorati tags: women, society, gender, life

Posted on Thursday, March 16th, 2006 at 4:47 am and filed under life, people.

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