Dear women, why do you surrender to men? || Acharya Prashant, with DU (2022)
Video Information: with DU, 20.03.2022, Greater Noida, India
Context:
What is aloneness?
What is loneliness?
How to be happy without depending on others?
How to understand the fear and how to get rid of it?
How to face challenges in life?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Context:
What is aloneness?
What is loneliness?
How to be happy without depending on others?
How to understand the fear and how to get rid of it?
How to face challenges in life?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Transcript
00:00 Women are physically a bit weaker. So it used to happen in times when we were not
00:14 very civilized that men could coerce them using sheer muscle power. Those days
00:22 are behind us. That does not happen anymore. That cannot happen anymore.
00:29 You have institutions, you have the law, you have the police and you have the gun.
00:34 And the gun does not listen to muscles. So how is it possible that one human
00:43 being is able to coerce another human being into something she does not want
00:49 to do at all? How is it possible? Have I framed the question rightly? Physical
00:57 compulsion is ruled out. Then how is one human being who happens to be a man is able
01:05 to brobeat another human being? Something is going on right? What's going on? I
01:15 always try to tell my women listeners
01:26 you're not being defeated. You are surrendering to something. That is the
01:36 difference. You cannot be defeated without your consent. And when defeat
01:47 comes with your consent, do not call it defeat. Honestly just call it willful
01:54 surrender. And if you want to be even more blunt then call it a deal. It's not
02:04 even surrender. It's a deal. I will bow down to your wish Mr. Patriarch and in
02:15 exchange I will avail such and such benefits Mr. Patriarch. That's the deal.
02:23 Now why do you call it exploitation at all then? Please if you are cutting a
02:31 deal, if you are signing an agreement, not on paper, mutual understanding. Why do you
02:43 say that the woman is being coerced? Nobody can force you into submission. You
02:57 are not a kid. You are not uneducated and we are not living in the dark ages. There
03:06 is something in you that agrees to the demands being made by the patriarchal
03:13 system. Question that. Do not just keep blaming patriarchy. What is it in you
03:26 that yields, surrenders and that thing is called greed, that thing is called
03:36 ignorance, that thing is called fear,
03:40 illusion. If I bow down, if I sell myself out, I'll get a happy life, illusion. So
03:56 that's what you need to fight against, your illusions and women, let's accept it.
04:07 Live more in dreams compared to men, don't they? Being of emotional disposition
04:16 in a biological way, it's so easy rather comparatively easier to sell dreams to
04:24 them and they buy those dreams. Why do you buy those dreams?
04:30 The tall knight with the shining armor on the white horse with wings, he'll come
04:50 to take me away to the fabled land of infinite promises and immeasurable love.
05:04 Why do I need to strengthen my muscles? Why do I need to fight it out? My knight
05:18 is almost ready with his horse and my job in life is to locate my knight and
05:26 give myself to him. I know I'm generalizing but just try to see whether
05:35 there is some fact in what I'm saying and then when the promised land doesn't
05:47 show up, when the dream doesn't materialize, then we say, "Oh, we have been
05:51 exploited."
05:54 You must be like 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, right? You must be in that age bracket. In that
06:12 age bracket, you are physically the strongest. This is the period in your
06:19 life when you are at your physical peak.
06:23 Don't you have muscles? Don't you have legs to run away? You have
06:34 legs, you can run away. You have muscles here, you can slap somebody and if a
06:42 brain here, you can think. How do you say you are being exploited? And you are
06:54 educated, right? So wherever you are, you will manage a living. Won't you be able
07:03 to earn even eight or ten thousand for yourself? Please? But then why take the
07:13 pains to earn money when money can be had for free? I am Mr. John's better half.
07:29 Look at the kind of propaganda and hideous lies embedded in our
07:38 language. Mr. John's better half. I am Mr. John's better half. I lay claim to half
07:50 his property. Why do you need to earn then? You just need to have a certain Mr.
07:59 John in your life. So then somebody can definitely force you into submission by
08:08 offering you Mr. John or by threatening that your prospects of having Mr. John
08:19 would be reduced if you don't yield. And then you say, oh right, let me agree to
08:28 whatever Papa is saying because Papa is going to have a great role in fetching
08:33 me my Mr. John. That's what you talked of government job, right? It's great that you
08:46 as a woman are preparing for that kind of a competitive examination.
08:52 But don't you know the ugly facts on the ground? All across the country,
09:01 especially in North India, parents of girls are so eager to marry them off to
09:09 somebody with some kind, any kind of a government job. And the girl too is
09:18 equally eager. And who will fetch that government job groom? Papa will fetch
09:25 that groom. So how dare then you resist Papa? How dare you do that? Because all
09:38 that I want to have is comfort. And I also don't want to run the risks of
09:44 living independently. Living independently is bliss. But it comes with
09:50 a price. I don't want to pay the price.
09:54 (music)
09:56 [Music]