Understanding is rarer than common sense

There is this thing that I have heard and read many times.

When a small child falls down, it gets up and if no one is watching, then it goes on about its business, i.e. playing and other stuff. However, if he notices someone watching, then it cries. After all, attention is something that children learn.

This is accentuated in a woman’s upbringing. Women are brought up to be damsel in distress! All the fairly-tales yell at a girl to be pretty, well-groomed, yearning for a gentleman, ready to be swept off her feet and surrender to love. Learning the household chores is also made a step towards earning the heart of a prince charming.

In the time of a disaster, don’t they say that first women and children need to be saved. Long ago, it had some other meaning. Saving women and children was important due to the investment syndrome, for saving the future of the race, a greater survival instinct. With time, the reason boiled down to weakness.

I am not saying all women are strong and powerful and can do anything and everything. Women may need help at times as anyone would. Let’s take a simple example. We all try and reach for our desired object that is kept at a higher level. If that is out of our reach, we use a table, a ladder, a chair or anything that may help us reach it. Simple! This is true for men and women. We all need help sometimes. Yet, in many dramas this simple situation would be used to portray the woman as a mere damsel in distress.

When I come across such instances, I think that I was never brought up to be a damsel in distress. I did not like even my own dad thinking that I call him when I am in trouble. Whenever I fell down, I tried to get up as fast as I could without waiting for anyone to come forward and help me. I didn’t like to be pitied. I didn’t want to be helped when I didn’t need any.

I wanted to be understood though.

Sometimes, or rather many times, it has happened that I was nicely busy in not showing my pain and was so successful that people attempted to check whether I was really hurt. This is true for emotional as well as physical pain. People would end up poking my wound too deep because I tried to compose my pain.

This experience taught me one major thing. It is not only that women are taught to be the damsels in distress but that men and society at large is taught to expect that women would showcase their weakness and helplessness in the face of calamity.

I believe there is no greater pain than the pain of being misunderstood or not being understood at all by our near and dear ones. This holds true for all beings (humans, animals, plants, inanimate objects and so on) alike.

Here, I have but discussed one of the social schema that makes us behave the way we do without even realizing it. But there are many more such things that lead us to not understand or misunderstand. I sometimes feel that understanding is rarer than common sense.

Let’s see!!!