The book about the cover
The gestalt effect is the capability of our brains to perceive whole "meaningful" objects by looking at collections of meaningless parts. It is the age-old rabbit or duck trick, where by slightly aligning your eyesight's focus on particular blank spaces or lines, you can make out both a duck and a rabbit in the same picture, at different times. The gestalt effect though isn't simply limited to our vision as apparently our minds can be tricked in a similar manner. Nowhere is this more evident than when we bring up the discussion of patriarchy.
"My friend and I were walking down Dhanmondi Lake when I was cat-called by what seemed to be a boy of school-going age. It was more shocking because he was with a few friends and being chaperoned by his mother." Namira recounts an incident much too common in the city. "However, the shocking part wasn't the boy's age. When my friend confronted his mother about her son's behaviour, she squarely put the blame on us, saying perhaps we should have worn an orna." The egregious amount of scrutiny women face everywhere, not just in this city, is worth the discussion and no matter how much we discuss it, unless solutions are found, we won't progress as a society.
The TSC incident last year brought the relation to the gestalt effect to the fore. While the harassment was met with widespread condemnations, a minister quipped saying these were only some "dushtucheles", almost as if their actions inspired warm-fuzzy feelings of pride. The ongoing discussion also led to many claiming that perhaps women should stay away from these places or dress appropriately during these occasions.Till date, very few people have even been brought to the book and it is not through lack of trying but rather because frankly the majority don't know who to really blame. That is where the problem lies.
Another recurring problem happens when people start using the term "empowered" too liberally. Westerners often come to Bangladesh with the sole intention of 'empowering' the women in our village, except their concept of empowerment isn't really one many of us can agree with. Women in villages do not necessarily need to dress in fancy clothes, refuse to listen to anything their husband says and work instead of taking care of household. That really isn't empowerment. In fact, using Grameenitself as a case in point, women in Bangladesh, especially in the villages, are a lot more empowered than women elsewhere. Not only do they take care of the household but many of them inspire respect of their peers and actually have a lot more say in the household decision-making process than they are being given credit for. You may teach them how to use Facebook and calculators, except they don't need Facebook and can already count and do the whole month's grocery shopping using just their hand. Such irrelevant notions of empowerment really take the attention away from bigger issues.
Like the gestalt effect, the problem of patriarchy really is our focus on the meaningless parts. Saviours will never be able to understand equality because in their mind's eye they will always be on a higher pedestal. It is time for us to ask the important questions and look at the entire situation as a whole. We must start our lessons right off at home and end it where our faith lies. God isn't beget nor is he begotten despite what the masculine imagery tells us. The narrative depends on the narrator. Perhaps, we should work out more oneness in our narratives then and zone in on the root of the matter. Look at the whole book and not how decent its cover is or is not.
By Osama Rahman
Photo: Sazzad Ibne Sayed
Model: Reetu Sattar
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