Narratives of masculine prejudice

A prince’s tale is mentioned in Arthur Koestler’s The Act of Creation. He was passing through his region when he saw a guy who looked a lot like him among the applauding spectators. Asking, “Was your mother ever employed in my palace?” he summoned him. The guy said, “No, sir. But my father was.” A prime example of masculine chauvinism, the prince seemed unconcerned by his father’s promiscuousness but could not tolerate his mother’s unchaste behavior.

Such was the mentality of my mother’s cousin and late uncle. I went to school with my mother’s much younger sisters, and we brought a tiffin with our midday meal. My aunts and I grew up in one house since my grandparents raised us. I immediately assumed that they were my siblings because of this!

With six or seven levels, the tiffin box was hefty. Carrying it by yourself was exhausting. We thus divided the load. But this arrangement ended abruptly, and to my benefit, when my uncle happened to walk by us on our way to school one day. At that point, I was the one holding the tiffin. He instantly raised his right hand to halt us and his eyebrows to show astonishment. He said, What was it that I was carrying? “Lunch,” I answered. “Just for you?” was his next query. “No, for all of us,” we replied together. Oh, is it true? he questioned, seeming surprised. He questioned, “But why do you carry it alone?” “We alternate,” I murmured. “They will carry it starting tomorrow, not you,” he said, gesturing to my “siblings.”

He quickly informed my grandmother that females would henceforth carry the lunch tiffin since it was a girl’s role. And she consented without the slightest doubt. I didn’t realize the significance of his patriarchal meddling until many later, having foolishly and self-serving believed that he had freed me from a difficult assignment.

In my community, there was another man who was a chauvinist. His mother was afraid of him too. She had to get his permission before leaving the home to visit friends, family, or her married daughters who lived in nearby villages. She needed outside assistance to do that since she couldn’t speak to him directly.

His actions resembled those of Napoleon, the despotic pig from Animal Farm by George Orwell. He reveled in his sense of dominance over the house’s female residents. He always had the last say on matters. It makes sense why he was seen negatively by many of the women in his area.