The Rebel Road…

The workplace has always been thought to be a ‘man’s domain’, but this point of view is being challenged on many fronts. After the introduction of women in the labour force, in the post-World War era, more and more women have joined the labour-force in ever equalising ratios, but this is not to imply that the treatment given to them, or the prestige and wage value attached to their work, is by any means equal to that being given to men. It is common knowledge that women have to work twice as hard as men, and yet are paid half as much. This view is supported by the observation made by Shulamith Firestone in the article, ‘The women’s rights movement in the USA: New View’, published in 1968, where it is said:

“The average woman earns approximately $ 2,827 annually, a little over half the average man’s earnings ($ 4,466). Despite the talk about businesswomen, how many businesswomen do you ever see? How many women in any managerial or decision making position? How many professionals? Ninety five percent of all professionals are still male. Academic opportunities are shrinking, not growing; even the women’s colleges and magazines are run by men. Nor does anyone mention the fact that future prospects look even dimmer. The routine jobs that were granted to women, a lollipop to appease their hunger for real and important work, will be the first to go, come automation. Perhaps men will have their way after all, and women will go back to the home they never should have left.”

Society is not merely an abstract concept of the greater whole. It is composed of individuals, with individual needs, wants, rights and duties. Whereas needs and wants may be individually determined, rights and duties are socially ascribed. This is to say that society decides what individual rights are, and what duties or qualities that individual has to perform or correspond to, in order to be eligible to those rights.

This is the concept of the social contract. This is the theory that forms the basis of social justice and is supported by almost all religions and philosophers. The founding premise behind the theory of the social contract is one of equality, as presented by Rousseau, “Political authority and obligation are based on the individual self-interests of members of society who are understood to be equal to one another, with no single individual invested with any essential authority to rule over the rest.” While the essential observations made according to the study of ‘the social contract’ remain true, the notion that “some men are more equal than others”, cannot be discounted either. Even Hobbes accedes to the monarch having absolute authority as a necessity for social existence. ‘Unquestionable’ power, must therefore, in Hobbes opinion, be a prerequisite for the current social reality. Indeed, Lenin himself accounts for the unequal statuses of individuals in a pre-socialist society when he says, in his book The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegate Kautsky:

“Secondly, it is obviously wrong. It is natural for a liberal to speak of ‘democracy’ in general, but a Marxist will never forget to ask: ‘For what class?’ Everyone knows, for instance (and Kautsky the ‘historian’ knows it too), that rebellions, or even strong ferment, among the slaves in ancient times at once revealed the fact that the ancient state was essentially a dictatorship of the slave owners. Did this dictatorship abolish democracy among, and for, the slave-owners? Everybody knows that it did not.”

This ‘unquestionable’ power, finds a correlate in the social construction of gender identities as well. This is the power of the male, the patriarch, the leader. The father, the husband, the brother or the son. The power is absolute and undeniable. One has merely to glance at supra-patriarchal societies like Pakistan to learn that laws such as the Hudood Ordinance or like the concessions made to killings made in the name of ‘honour’, to realise that it is almost as if the system conspires against the woman.

And it does.

The continuance of such a system of hegemony propagation entails some necessary conditions. These are as follows:

The classification of the act of demanding rights as deviance,

Strict and immediate retribution against such a demand,

Institutionalisation of such retribution, and

Carrying out retribution in such a way that it reinforces popular perception.

If one is to examine the truth behind all these statements, one must try and find real life examples for such systems of oppression. And one does find many real life examples for this. I will attempt to explain two of these.

Honour killing in Pakistan has been rampant for as long as one care research. A woman killed in the name of family honour and pride, tortured, shot, knifed, axed or plainly beat up by her father, brother, husband or son is so ‘usual’ that it does not even elicit a base revulsion from an average middle class Pakistani. The myth of the family honour being carried on the shoulders of the family’s women is so perfectly ingrained that there is no breaking out of the cycle. This, coupled with the manner of drafting of the laws, and dispensing justice, i.e. the proceedings of the legislature of Pakistan are at odds with women’s rights. A popular but relevant example is that of the previous rape law, where a woman had to present four men of good social standing to testify in her favour for the charge of rape to be established. This, in an age where such clarification can easily be made with DNA finger-printing and forensic medical testing. Although this law was changed after the Hudood laws were amended, but does this not represent an institutionalisation of the oppression of women? In my opinion it does.

One is ready to call a female a member of the ‘fairer sex’, but one should ask oneself, do we mean pretty and beautiful or fragile and weak?

Similarly, at the workplace, we see that the dynamics of interaction are much different. At informal meetings, such as those carried on in the office café, we find that men will talk openly with each other, liberally using slang and swear words as they see fit to suit the situation. A great amount of physical contact is also seen between peers of the same gender. This situation is drastically changed with the introduction of a female in the group. Suddenly, the spines stiffen, the words become more formal and physical contacts next to disappear. The most visible account of this occurs in vertically sectioned hierarchical meetings, i.e. boss and employee meetings, which may be informal or semi-formal in nature.

These observations lead us to ask this question: does the communication between men and women vary according to their economic status and the class they belong to?

The mode of reception of sensation, thus, plays a very important part in the overall perception of a concept. If the sensation is wrong, the perception will naturally be wrong. This is precisely what happens in the case of an illusion. However, in the case of hallucination, it is not the sensation that is at fault; it is the meaning rather. Usually, the process is done in steps with sensation coming first and meaning following but in the case that meaning precedes sensation a person can very possibly sense what his mind is making meaning of, without the actual presence of the sensation at all. Thus, a person can see ghosts, ghouls and goblins without the said phenomenon actually being present.

Having now understood the concept of reality and illusion, one can see that there is a factor common both to reality and to illusion. That factor is the presence of stimulus. As stated above, in a reality a stimulus is correctly received and the right meaning is attached to it, whereas in an illusion, the stimulus itself is incorrectly received, hence it is mistaken for something it is not, but that does not change the fact that a stimulus is nonetheless present in both situations as compared to a hallucination.

Once it is established that there is an independent reality, one can get onto the business of establishing man as a part of it. Man is the only agent in the known universe that is fully intelligent, conscious and capable of reason. And all these qualities have given him one thing: free will.

Modern scientists find that free will has to be explained in order to find out, firstly and obviously, what it is, and, more importantly, how it distinguishes us from other matter and material compositions in the universe. It is only after we do this, can we find out where this agency of free will will help us out in the future. That is to say, if there is a higher plane of existence, and no other entity has experienced it, then by Occum’s Razor, our only chance of ever attaining that plane of existence must lie in these very characteristics.

In an attempt to do so, it is seen that there are many different occurrences and happenings — events in the universe that follow no discernable pattern. These events are, for the lack of a better word, completely random. A random occurrence is that which defies explanation or pattern. This is where a distinction is made between man (a special conglomeration of matter) and ordinary matter. An example of ordinary matter following an unexplained, random pattern is seen on the sub-atomic level. When energy is giving to an atom, a shift of electrons occurs. That is, they jump orbits, but no amount of scrutiny or scientific study has been able to produce a theory that would help us predict which electron would shift orbit or when this would occur, and hence, the only explanation to be presented for that is that there is no pattern, that it is a completely random occurrence. Similarly, in human beings, no amount of theory can predict what a person’s next move or action would be, hence, the only theory presented to explain it is that of lack of any other pattern. In other words, it is that of free will.

It is through this free will that we exercise what we want. That we mould that which is external, i.e., the universe, to conform to how we want it to be internally, i.e., in our mind. For example, if I feel that the walls of my room would look better in red as compared to if they were white then I would paint them red. It is my internal volition, my free will that lets me exercise my “will” over my environment. To change it as I see fit as the action of cognitive and free individual.

Now, having established that I, as an individual, can change the unrelenting and independent reality to conform to my needs and desires, just as other stimuli around me surround me and act on me in a dialectical fashion, it is only through my own existence that I could change or affect the rest of the universe. Therefore, I must also be a legitimate stimulus that acts on the perceptions of others. This is held true since I do affect other people and their sense organs. And I do it in such a fashion that a large number of people, assuming they are sane, perceive me in a similar, if not the same fashion. It is this way that I submit my contention that I am not an illusion, but rather am a very real, very present, sometimes relative, often objective reality. If we do not use these very criteria for the establishment of the reality of self, then the opposing option presents a very bleak picture as the famous last words of Chuang Tzu’s poem show:

“Am I a Man”, he thought, “who dreamed that I was a butterfly?