Is fear a gender issue? That is, is fear triggered differently between men and women? Fear is defined as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm.” This is a general definition that does not differentiate between men and women.
But in a patriarchal set-up where values are founded and structured mainly on male-dominated ideals and principles, where men hold the upper hand in power and in the decision-making process over women, fear is indeed a gender issue.
The conditioning of fear among girl children begins from the time when they are very small. “Do not talk to strangers...” or, “do not accept sweets or chocolates from strangers.”
As the little one grows up, the questions change but the common denominator is instilling fear in the girl child even when she is not conditioned by fear of any kind. One might argue that even little boys are warned of not doing similar things. But the emphasis, the repetition and the manner of the warnings are different for girls and boys.
As the girl enters her teens and begins her periods, she is warned about not wearing clothes where much of her skin is seen, or, not to step out after sundown, or, not to go to picnics where boys are present. These are quite efficiently avoided by most adolescent girls by resorting to the easiest way, lying blatantly to their elders and parents.
But the damage is done. A small ball of fear remains hidden like a lump in the stomach and the girl wears an invisible line that defines the limits of proximity – in conversation, in terms of spaces maintained between a girl’s male friends, in terms of even simple examples of touch, such as holding hands or touching the shoulder of a female partner and so on.
Patriarchy also is structured in the fear among girls of becoming fat, of ‘losing’ one’s complexion in the sun, the fear of being labelled as ‘dark-skinned’. The fear of being labelled as having skin with varied shades of brown and of looking unattractive.
Young males suffer from the same fears but the intensity is much less than it is among females. Socially ingrained and internalised ideas of male and female beauty differ, and so do the fears they give rise to. But a short or fat or dark boy is less afraid of his physical looks bringing negative response from the public than females.
The fear of being body-shamed is more among females than among males. Girls are conditioned to look good socially while males condition themselves to look good and are not necessarily conscious of their masculinity dictated by societal norms.
This leads to the fear of eating things that will lead to an unattractive body. Questions like “Am I too fat?” “Am I too thin?” and so on trigger the fear of losing an ‘ideal’ body. “Am I too dark or am I too fair?” The ideals of physical perfection dictated by socially conditioned thoughts trigger more fear among females than in males.
Even Mahatma Gandhi has written in his memoir, ‘My Experiments With Truth’ that on his way to London, travelling on a ship filled with ‘White’ co-passengers, he “felt so dark” that he began washing himself with soap and water so many times that finally, his skin began to bleed. He realised that no amount of washing himself with soap and water will be able to change the pigmentation of his skin.
If the fear of a dark skin tone that might function as a social barrier within a ‘White’ society can instil fear in a man like Gandhi, imagine what it can do to an ordinary young girl who gets repeatedly rejected in a marriage match because the other side wants a fair-skinned bride!
The greatest fear that differentiates between men and women is the fear of being victim to a criminal act which is several times more among the females of the species than among males. “Will I be attacked if I walk alone on a deserted street in the dark?” is a fear among most girls and women brought up within a patriarchal society.
Crimes like being stalked, molested, eve-teased and raped and even killed are fears that girls are brought up within. Media reports of rapes, molestations, further aggravate these fears as much as films or television serials do. This is a global reality and not just an Indian or Asian one.
The ways in which gender impacts how people perceive and behave in public space may also shed light on the fear-gender gap, as women report higher fear than men in public space. It is, for20 example, likely that gender socialisation is associated with diverging perceptions of space for men and women, as girls are less prone than boys to be encouraged by their parents to investigate and explore their surroundings.
Women’s fear often alters their movement in urban space and thus is notoriously attached to spatial limitations. Female behaviour is also sensitive to contextual factors such as area of residence.
Living in a neighbourhood known for harbouring questionable males becomes a source of fear among girls and women which may not be the case among boys and men. Similar problems may create fear when there is a shift in residence for a girl from a familiar place to a new neighbourhood.
Fear of any crime happening to a person, especially females, is a product of patriarchy. Every step of the way, a girl’s life is filled with fears such as a bra-strap becoming visible in public space, or, the fear of trying out a new dress inside the changing room of a shopping mall in case it has a hidden camera.
Many are scared of being alone in a room with a male private tutor, fear of elderly male relatives feeling her up which the girl can't even complain about to her family for fear of being disbelieved or rebuked or both.
There is the fear of being groped while travelling in a crowded public transport, fear of being felt up and down by the swimming or the gym coach. These are very gender-specific fears. Add to this the fear while using a public woman’s toilet of being watched in her most private and intimate moments.
Women’s fears know no limits during war time or times when there is a political crisis in the country, such as the fear among women and girls felt during, before and after the Partition of India. Women who were forced to migrate leaving their families behind are filled with unknown fears till the end of their lives. Men are not an exception but they are much less victimised by fear of being raped, than women.
In a short story ‘The Doe’s Eyes’, Mohan Bhandari narrates the story of Naseeb Kaur who had lost her husband and son in a communal riot. She managed to save herself from being killed by fleeing into a place in Defence Colony.
She was rescued by Major Chhadda who had seen in her gaze, the eyes of a doe. He began to desire her secretly and lost his sleep over his desire to possess her. One morning, when he woke up from a restless night, he discovered that Naseeb had died out of sheer fright and not because she was subjected to any physical molestation.
In Sadat Hasan Manto’s hard-hitting story ‘Khol Do’, we read of a teenage girl discovered by her father in a refugee camp during the Partition. She undoes the string of her pajamas whenever a male approaches the bed she is lying in, because the words “Khol Do” hold no meaning for her except being raped which she has accepted as the only way to live. She seems to have stripped herself of her fear by learning to accept her destiny.
Liberation does not signify breaking the chains of being imprisoned, nor does it mean financial independence or breaking the chains of captivity within patriarchal norms forced down their throats. Liberation is a state of mind which comes from within.
The best example is in the life of writer Ajeet Caur, a noted and much-awarded Punjabi writer. She was a victim of domestic violence and walked out with her two little girls. She writes in her autobiography, “Economic independence alone doesn’t allow a woman to experience liberation. Nor is it gained by breaking free of the proverbial seven constraints, leaving a father’s and husband’s house to create your own world.
“Neither does it come from fighting life’s battles on your own, nor from garnering the courage to live alone by shattering the shackles of age-old social norms.” The basic gender divide based on fear is that while men fear failure, women fear success because within patriarchy, success of any woman who has excelled in her life, renders her susceptible to different kinds of fear.
None of these are faced by men. So, fear is a gendered emotion across the world.