DON’T!

A lot of crimes are committed against women by men who have been taught to view women as less than equals
Ratna Raman Delhi

Crimes are committed every day against women. There are crimes of intent, accident, passion and motivation and few women are free from this onslaught. It's fascinating under the circumstances to recall that nature programmes the female foetus as one of its chosen. Any survey will tell you that the female of the species is always more hardy than the male. Mortality rates, when not tampered with, show that the female infant has a much higher logistics of survival. This is because the female of the species is an important link in the chain of selection. Without the female, neither would the propagation of the species be possible nor would its continuance remain an unchangeable detail. 

It is perhaps several hundred years since we discovered this very important biological fact about the central role of the female of the species. Yet, this has not been reflected in our socio-cultural fabric. Has the significance of this penetrated the consciousness of our community builders, our patriarchal heads, our temple priests, our religious leaders, our lawmakers, our local communities, and our little nuclear families? 

The answer still remains negative. The crime graph against women begins from the time the foetus begins to move from an undifferentiated identity to take on a female form. It is difficult to list the number of atrocities directed against women in the patriarchal societies in which we all live. Nevertheless, the examination of the process of the making of a woman, remains significant. 
Simone De Beauvoir, one of the most articulate feminists of the 20th century, drew attention to this. She declared that "One is not born, rather, one becomes a woman."  

How is this "becoming" achieved?   

Tracing this process will probably enable us to understand how the processes of internalising the prescriptions of culture rob women of the primeval advantage that both nature and the life force have bestowed upon them. 

When a baby is born, the infant is welcomed into the world, looked after and a lot of attention is lavished on it. Kohl or kajal is used to line the eyes of the little baby (this makes for beauty and apparently provides great exercise for the eye sockets), black bangles are put to ward off the evil eye, and should the evil eye gaze first at the face, a black til, formed by collyrium and human fingers, is meant to deter it. So far so good. 

It's easy enough to dismiss this customary practice as superstitious hogwash, but the narrative changes as the humanness of the little baby becomes further demarcated into the male or the female. Once gender has been made the marker, cultural practice swings in and two books, one pertaining to rights and responsibilities and the other pertaining to  restrictions and responsibilities, come into play.

The rights usually pertain to the little boy, the restrictions by far are imposed on the little girl. There is a huge history of analysis, debate and discussion that has gone into this, so I will simply confine myself to analysing how language plays into these restrictions. The restrictions are usually very simple. They work with one operative word "Don't".  

This imperative negative is linked to an explanatory sub clause: "Because you are a girl."  The sub clause remains unspoken all the time, but is meant to be understood.