Madonna or Whore?

Smruti Desai finds that even so-called modern metrosexual men think of women in extreme terms.

“Amrita Arora is so cheap. She changes boyfriends every month! But Malaika is classy”, said one of my male colleagues. “Yeah, in comparison, Malaika Arora is definitely classy”, said my other male colleague. To which I replied, “ Why? Because Malaika stuck to one guy and married him?” Well, this had the desired effect, both of the guys actually looked lost for an answer. Both sported a look that said, what has that got to do with anything? 

This incident got me thinking. I realized that men still think of women as either a madonna or a whore. And what makes it worse is that with all the pressure to be liberal, they don’t even realize or rather don’t accept that they still think in that mode. Few men, if any, can really accept women as human beings. For the majority they are either goddesses to be revered -- the kind you can take home and introduce to mama. Or they are the kind you treat with contempt or worse, to be used as amusement and entertainment.

I remember during my college days, I would see all the guys in my group going gaga over sexy babes. And the guys would always say, they are nice eye candy, but we would not dream of marrying someone like them. They thought these girls to be loose and ‘unsuitable’ candidates for the ‘homely’ kind of wife that they had in mind. So, we don’t mind dating sexy chicks but we will only marry the quiet, docile, and family-oriented girls that our parents approve. My college had a predominantly business class crowd, that is, the gujaratis and marwadis, who were traditional and had conservative views on how a woman should dress and how she should behave. Which is fine, but what is not fine is that their conservative views did not stop them from having fun with ‘such’ girls. But then I can still tolerate their views thinking that they were a bunch of Neanderthals who didn’t know any better.

What surprises me is that the so-called liberal and ‘thinking’ men are no better. They also think of women in the Madonna or whore stereotype. Like in the case of my colleagues. Malaika Arora does all kinds of sexy and steamy numbers and she is still considered classy, while Amrita Arora does the same thing but is called cheap. Why? Because Malaika dated only Arbaaz Khan, married him, and has embraced motherhood with passion, which makes her respectable. Whereas Amrita has had many relationships and is open about them and does admit to them unlike scores of other Bollywood actresses who act coy about their relationships. Clandestine affairs are acceptable, whereas an honest to goodness acknowledgement of an affair is considered cheap. 

The message is very clear; women can have their share of affairs as long as they are willing to be labeled as weak, irresponsible, flighty and dumb blondes. The day they are open and honest about them, they are termed as licentious, loose, and generally as whores. Does a woman confident about her sexuality make a man insecure? The answer is yes. There are no in-betweens. A woman is either a goddess or a whore. It is almost as if women are forced to accept the responsibility of being moral and ‘pure’ because men cannot be. 

Thinking out loud: What are men with morals and integrity called? Aliens!