Balance, Not Hierarchy: Reflections on Gender, Faith, and Forgotten Wisdom
I thought we were all equal. Until I looked closer.
*deep sigh* I never really had to learn that men and women deserve to be treated equally. It wasn’t a lesson someone sat me down and taught. It just existed in the background of my life, quietly, naturally, almost like air. Obvious right?
For a long time, I thought this was how the world worked. That equality was the default. That everyone, more or less, saw it the same way.
It took me a while to realize how rare that environment was.
It was in my early twenties, around the time I was finishing college, that the cracks began to show. Not in dramatic ways, there were no big speeches or blatant rules. Just small, almost invisible patterns I had never noticed before. At family gatherings, I started seeing how decisions were made. The women in my extended family, smart, capable, endlessly kind, had little to no say in things that directly affected their lives.
It wasn’t about being told “no.” No one said those words out loud. It was subtler than that. The men earned the money, so they made the calls. The rest of the household, no matter how competent, simply followed along. Finance decisions, family plans, even everyday choices, everything quietly flowed through a male filter. Made me question, “Do I also have to make money to be heard?”.
And what was worse? No one questioned this system. Including the women. Not because they agreed, but because, after years of living in dependency, it had just become normal.
That’s when it hit me: this thing I thought was universal, this basic idea of fairness, wasn’t universal at all. It was a bubble. And outside that bubble, things looked very different.
Worse At The Workplace
When I entered the working world, the contradictions became more glaring. I saw women managing offices, homes, caregiving, doing it all, yet still being treated as second-class citizens.
I saw women being interrupted in meetings, their suggestions ignored until a male colleague repeated them. Male juniors were promoted over more experienced women.
Some had to hide pregnancies during probation periods to avoid losing job offers. Others were discouraged from applying for roles that required travel, with the assumption that family obligations would come in the way. I once heard a manager say, “She’s great, but she just had a baby, so let’s go with someone else for this one.”
Even accomplished women were introduced as "so-and-so's wife," their identities reduced to relational labels.
If this is how women are treated in boardrooms and high-rise apartments, what happens in places without power, visibility, or privilege?
What the Scriptures Actually Say
I remember once saying in a conversation, “A woman isn’t born to walk behind a man, but beside him.” And someone replied almost instantly: “But it’s written in the scriptures.”
That stayed with me, not because I believed it, but because of how easily we invoke tradition to shut down questions. Often, without ever actually reading what we’re quoting.
So I went to the source. Not reels. Not WhatsApp forwards. Actual texts.
I wanted to understand for myself what was really said, not what was passed down in fragments.
And what I found was… surprising.
Many of our scriptures aren’t limiting at all. In fact, when read with care and context, they’re empowering. They speak of balance, mutual respect, and shared roles, not hierarchy.
We live in a country that proudly quotes:
"Yatra nāryastu pūjyante ramante tatra devatāḥ" — Manusmriti 3.56
Meaning: Where women are honored, there the gods rejoice.
It’s a beautiful sentiment. But somewhere between that verse and our lived reality, something important got lost. Because what is reverence worth if it doesn’t also mean voice, choice, and freedom?
What’s the point of celebrating goddesses on a calendar if women at home aren’t part of the decisions that shape their own lives?
The truth is, we’ve often remembered the verses that are easy to honor and overlooked the ones that are harder to confront.
These verses weren’t meant to be museum pieces. They were living truths for their time. And maybe it’s time we reconnected with that spirit.
Somewhere along the way, we turned Shakti, the other half of Shiv, into something symbolic. Many ancient texts like the Devi Mahatmya, Tripura, and Bahvricha Upanishads describe Shakti not as a metaphor, but as the supreme consciousness, the source of creation, power, and wisdom. Far from being secondary, she is the force behind even the gods themselves.
We made these goddesses into festivals. And real women into the shadows of men.
The Psychology of Patriarchy
I sometimes think about this from a psychological standpoint. Patriarchy isn’t just an external system. It’s an internal script now. In psychology, we call it internalized oppression.
This is when women start policing themselves:
A woman apologizes before asking a question.
A mother says, “I shouldn’t spend too much on myself.”
A daughter says, “I don’t want to study more, it’ll be hard to find a groom.”
A wife says, “It’s not a big deal, he was just angry.”
A working professional turns down a relocation offer because “I can’t make my husband shift for my job”, or “his job is more important”.
A sister says, “I won’t wear this, it’ll upset Dad.”
It starts young. Girls are praised for being obedient, boys for being bold and assertive. These subtle cues shape our behavior long before we can even name them.
Then there’s learned helplessness. When people face repeated disempowerment, they eventually stop trying. Even when opportunities arise, change feels impossible.
Resistance has a cost. Women who challenge norms are labeled "difficult," "unfeminine," or "too ambitious." They're isolated or shamed. And as Carol Gilligan said,
"The hardest thing for a woman to do is to stand up for herself without feeling she’s hurting someone else."
But what we rarely talk about is this:
The system doesn't just oppress women. It protects the male ego.
Patriarchy coddles it. It teaches men that questioning is an attack, compromise is weakness, and equality is loss. When women assert themselves, it doesn’t just inconvenience the status quo, it destabilizes men whose entire self-worth is tied to dominance.
If you've been raised to believe your voice matters more, then a woman demanding space feels like theft. But it isn't. It's balance.
Only insecure men fear strong women. Strong men aren't threatened. They listen. They grow.
Why It Feels So Normal
When everything, your food, your freedom, your safety, depends on your father, your husband, your son, or a male boss, walking away doesn’t feel brave. It feels impossible.
And over time, it starts to feel normal.
We often ask, "Why don’t women just leave such toxic homes or work environments?" But rarely do we ask: why is she trapped to begin with? Why does her autonomy threaten someone else's sense of self?
Because patriarchy isn't just inherited. It's internalized. And when the cage is built into your mind, the door looks like a wall.
In earlier times, women often sought survival through marriage, through aligning with systems that offered them basic security. Today, women are seeking something else entirely, companionship, partnership, equality. The goal is no longer just to exist safely, but to live fully, with agency and voice.
What I Wish People Knew
What I wish more people understood is that feminism isn’t about putting women above men. It’s not some reverse hierarchy or power grab. It’s not “us vs. them.” It’s just… fairness. That’s it.
It doesn’t say women are better. It simply asks, why should anyone be made to feel lesser?
And yet, the moment you say you’re a feminist, people assume you hate men, or that you’re against tradition, or that you want to flip the whole system upside down.
But feminism isn’t about flipping anything. It’s about balancing what was never equal to begin with.
It’s not a threat, unless your comfort depends on someone else’s silence.
And honestly, if equality makes you uncomfortable, maybe it’s because privilege has gotten too cozy.
Our scriptures, when read deeply, emphasize balance, not hierarchy.
The Shakti principle wasn’t a metaphor. It meant power. Co-creation. Equality. Yet somewhere, we turned goddesses into festivals and real women into shadows.
But Something Is Shifting
Where I live, there’s a quiet change happening. It’s not loud or dramatic, but it’s real. I see more women leading, not because they fought their way in, but because they belong there. I see women keeping their names after marriage, holding onto their identity. I see them buying properties for themselves and their parents. I see their full names on the doors. I see them managing their own money. I see them setting healthy boundaries to protect their mental peace. I see daughters being raised to ask ‘why’, not just say ‘yes’. I see women saying no without guilt. Best of all, I see men starting to get it, challenging old ideas, letting go of what no longer makes sense, and not feeling like they’re losing in any sense by doing it.
It’s not perfect. But it’s something. And it matters. Maybe it’s the start of something much bigger.
Final Thoughts
I’m not angry. I’m just awake and constantly reflecting on my own experiences, as one should. Chintan manan they call it. And I still believe we as a society can do much better.
Because like the Gita says: Nothing is permanent except change.
And real change asks for effort. It means choosing truth over habit. It means letting go of comfort. It means showing up with honesty.
So if reading this threatens your ego, maybe ask yourself:
How did I make the world freer and more equal for the women around me?
Did I stand for women’s freedom to choose, without an argument or a fight?
Did I expect women to make the sacrifices that benefit me?
Did I truly listen to women’s anger, or dismiss it?
Did I challenge the patriarchy within me?
Why I Talk Less and Write More
The main reason I talk less on these matters and write more is that people come back with half-baked opinions wrapped in their so-called ancient nonsense. They’ll parrot something some insecure person wrote centuries ago, without ever questioning its relevance in today’s world or its origin. Most of them haven’t read a single original text. They quote the Ramayan and the Mahabharat like soundbites, not from understanding, but from WhatsApp forwards. Ask them to speak five logical lines about the actual state of Indian society, its gender disparity, its social structures, its contradictions, and they’ll either change the topic or double down on some convenient myth about how “things used to be better back then.”
They hide behind tradition, selectively interpreting verses that reinforce their worldview while ignoring the ones that challenge it. In psychology, this is called confirmation bias, favoring information that supports pre-existing beliefs and filtering out what contradicts them. It’s not just flawed logic; it’s, scientifically speaking, a failure of critical thinking backed by decades of scientific research by Charles Lord, Lee Ross, and Mark Lepper (1979).
These kinds of conversations become exhausting for me, not because the issues are too complex, but because the resistance to actual logic and change is so loud. People mostly are not debating ideas, they are deflecting their own insecurities. They're not talking about gender roles; they're tiptoeing around fragile egos built on silence and submission.
And in such spaces, talking feels useless. So I choose my moments carefully. I save my breath. Until I’m speaking with someone who is well-read, actually listens, not just reacts.
If a conversation doesn't begin with unbiased logic and honesty, it has no right to ask for my energy.
People I’ve vowed to stay the furthest from are the ones who say: "This is how it’s always been. Our ancestors did it this way."
Dear mate, our ancestors also burned widows. They married off 9-year-old girls. They denied women the right to read, speak, or even exist independently.
Look where that thinking got us: a world where half the population still has to fight just to be heard.
We don’t need more WhatsApp forwards or outdated Instagram quotes. We need conscience. Conviction. Change.
Not the performative kind. The real, uncomfortable, liberating kind.
The kind that tears down silence and builds something bold, equal, and true. That’s what moves us, all of us, forward.
I leave you with the fact that India ranks 129th out of 146 countries on the Gender Gap Index (2024). Think about it, think about where we went wrong, and think about how you want to raise your sons and daughters.