In our society, there is a persisting tendency to put women on a pedestal and equate them with goddesses. She is often called the sister, the mother, the devi – this is often the case while talking about physical abuse and assault prevention.
For example, recently, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, urged people to view women as “manifestations of the Goddess”. He believes that this could help curb crimes against women, reports The Indian Express.
“Daughters and sisters should be accorded goddess-like sanctity,” he added.
Responding to this, many people online questioned that if criminals would have been god-fearing, they wouldn’t be committing crimes in the first place.
Whoever says whatever but real fact is that we worship Goddesses but in real life treat women as a property. We worship many Gods in many different temples but we don’t fear while doing many crimes which we presume as hidden. In fact we are hypocrites of order one. 1/2
— Manak Chand Nahata (@mcnahata) October 15, 2021
Some also highlighted that to curb crimes against women, we need strict laws instead.
Crimes against women can be stopped by strict laws .
Please don’t depend upon mentality of a man.
Make such law which create frighten in criminals and such incident can be avoided— Devendra Daharwal 🇮🇳🇮🇳 (@DevendraDaharw5) October 14, 2021
Agar criminals me bhagean ka dar hota ya bhagwan ke liye respect hota to ye aise ghinaune kam karte hi nahi kabhi
— Prachi Gupta (@PrachiG93025253) October 14, 2021
Women, on the other hand, said that we do not need the world to see us as Goddesses, but only like humans.
Please dont see us as ‘Goddess’ 🙏 we would be more than happy if you see us as ‘Humans’
— Sudha Singh (@Soulful_sudha04) October 15, 2021
Women are compared to everything in this country, just never a human being https://t.co/aNzsskxZYO
— S 🌿 (@mohobatzindabad) October 14, 2021
Pedestalisation of women as deities dehumanizes us. Viewing women via an idealistic lens basically asserts the regressive notion that if a woman is ‘pure’ and ‘devi like’, she is meant to be protected and otherwise not.
What are your views on this? Tell us.
Cover image: source.