Opinion The Power of A Woman
Early last week,the media was full of images of a faceless domestic servant who had caused a celebrated Bollywood actor to be arrested on charges of rape.
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When it comes to womens emancipation nothing is quite what it seems. Early last week,the media was full of images of a faceless domestic servant who had caused a celebrated Bollywood actor to be arrested on charges of rape.
A few days later the cameras had moved to capture the actors wife,a former marketing executive,mounting a determined campaign in support of her husband. From making supportive gestures in court to organizing friends and family to giving interviews,the slim,attractive Mrs. Ahuja has single-handedly transformed the image of the man who we last saw as a masked,handcuffed figure on the floor of a police jeep into a caring husband and father and someone who is unlikely to have committed the crime he has been accused of (Can the sun rise from the west?,she is believed to have said when questioned about Shineys guilt).
It is likely that Anupam Ahuja actually believes in her husbands innocence,medical tests and a reported confession notwithstanding. Perhaps she is right in claiming that he has been framed. Or perhaps she loves him dearly enough to forgive him anything. Or it may be that for a host of more practical reasons she would rather stand by him than not. These are decisions based on subjective and personal grounds.
On the other hand the fact that she is throwing her weight behind her husband as a woman that too in a case involving sexuality and an alleged crime against a vulnerable member of her gender — this makes her decision a political one,affecting all women.
In the old days a wife would probably have been left to nurse her wounds in private in a scandal involving sex. These days a more intrusive public and media and the changing face of womanhood make it incumbent upon the wife to express a point of view. And interestingly most women have tended to use their power both as independent women and wronged spouses to defend their men; examples include Hillary Clinton and former journalist Maria Shriver who had to confront allegations of sexual harassment by her husband Arnold Schwarzenegger.
One can empathize with the predicament of the scandal-hit wife and with a perceived need to stand by a spouse in adversity. At the same time the power to speak as a woman is a hard-won privilege; it should not be used thoughtlessly.
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