Ladies,make no apologies for knowing your rights

What would you do if your husband came home one rainy night and trooped in mud across the carpet in the sitting room and went straight upstairs and got into bed, filthy shoes and all?

My mother was asked this question during a premarital counselling session 40 years ago. She was with my father and both sets of parents; it was her pastor asking. Without hesitation or concern about what her audience would think of her, she audaciously said he would not have the chance to step foot in her sitting room, let alone get into a clean bed. She’s not the kind to hide behind political correctness.

The right answer, of course, was that she would, like a good wife should, clean up after him, and change his clothes and the bedsheets after he sleeps off whatever he was on. My mother tells this story to most of the young couples she meets because for her, it is an example of the kind of discrimination women inherently face even before they say ‘I do’. Her moral? Do not allow yourself to be trampled over because of your gender; women have rights, too.

Bridal and baby showers are chock-full of advice for women on how they should conduct themselves to win the approval of their men and extended family. Men? They do not have similar forums to be taught about women’s right to liberty, dignity, equality, non-discrimination and physical and mental integrity.

Women are also not encouraged to think about these things as their fundamental rights. Instead, we are taught to sacrifice, submit, learn to shut up, lower our expectations, and so on.

The 16 days of activism against gender violence is a campaign to challenge violence and discrimination. We know about the more obvious displays of violence – physical and mental – but discrimination, dignity and equality are elements we seem to think are too broad to define and implement.

We talk about the family unit being the fabric of society, but if we allow discrimination to begin at this elemental level, then what kind of society do we expect to create?

When our boys and girls grow up seeing their mothers being treated as second class citizens – their feelings are trampled on, their advice is not sought, their wishes are dismissed – can we really expect to raise a generation of people that respects the rights of women to dress as they wish, walk where they will without harassment and bid for whichever political post catches their fancy?

I was raised by a very proud woman and a man who makes no apologies for the strength his wife displays. For me, my father is the definition of a man who recognises a woman’s fundamental right to dignity, equality and non-discrimination. And I know there are many more families like mine, where women are given the right to speak up, to be heard.

The men raised in this way are the kind likely to heed the call to stand up and be counted in the efforts to stop gender-based violence (whether it is a man or woman being attacked). They are the ones we can rely on to protect the vulnerable and participate in the actions of some men in a certain video being widely circulated.

In it, a lone Indian woman is walking on a somewhat deserted street when two men approach her with overt and offensive sexual intentions clear in their body language. A man walking by them sees what is going on and heads towards the group.

Rather than shoot a video of what will unfold – like happens when our women are being sexually assaulted at bus stages – he steps in front of the woman and stares down her would-be assailants. He is soon joined by several other men who form a protective circle around the woman.

Isn’t that what we want for our men and women – a generation confident enough in their worth to recognise the same value in other people and defend to the death their right to security, to dignity?

We must begin to recognise the areas we have failed in our families and work to correct them for the sake of our society. The list of ‘how to’ in a marriage should build up women and their sense of worth; men must begin to be taught to stand up for their women and give them the opportunity to build the basic unit of society as equals.

Only then can we hope to enjoy the kind of world we only dream of.