Women should think about following things about their well being and Self-Worth:
Emotional abuse disguised as love and protection:
Emotional abuse is often disguised as love and care. Toxic relationships might seem normal from the ulterior and even to the person who is enduring one but if you consciously look for the toxic traits in one’s behaviour that are making the relationship toxic for you, you will be shocked to discover what seemed normal was toxic in reality. Women have long associated patterns with domestic violence, toxic stalking behaviour, and psychological abuse as love and protection and might even reject the idea of it being toxic in the first place. Toxic behaviours are normalized to the point that people accept them as normal. Someone getting violent, threatening self-harm, and generally being abusive isn’t normal. These are toxic behaviours and should be called out.
The realization of being stuck:
Women endure abusive relationships and marriages because they think that they have lived with it for so long that it would be near to impossible to live without it. People prefer being with an emotionally abusive partner because they are scared to leave or made to believe how worthless they would be without them. Women particularly associate their worth with males because of the patriarchal system that conditions them to put faith in the idea that their life is incomplete without a man in it. The girl in the novel took the step of getting out of an abusive marriage after being stuck in it for years and it didn’t come without apprehensions but she still showed persistence in discomfort and doubts. You can have doubts, apprehensions, and inhibitions but you will get through. Many have before and you will too.
The patriarchal ideal of good women:
We consciously or unconsciously live with the patriarchal idea of who a good woman is and even if we wouldn’t like to accept it, it is there. It is a continuous process of self-realization and the deep conditioning that we get from our childhood that will allow us to disregard the patriarchal definition of good woman because no one has the right to define it for us other than women themselves. We shouldn’t be made to endure an abusive marriage because of a regressive concept such as “honor”, there’s nothing like safeguarding the honor of the family at the expense of one’s own mental health and happiness. Every woman is entitled to decide her definition and how she wants to be. The idea of a “good woman” is regressive and a systematic effort to keep women enchained to the patriarchal society.
Exclusory behaviors:
The patriarchal system has long kept women enslaved to their regressive and inhumane traditions with their exclusionary practices. If you don’t conform to the set norms and beliefs you will be excluded from the family, your disobedience will cause you to lose your place in the society and bring shame to your family, no one will marry you, you will die alone are some of the most heard and practiced behaviors. These are the tactics that are in practice for decades to keep women loyal to the obnoxious ideas and traditions of conservative societies. Women shouldn’t entrust their beliefs with humanly constructed ideas and that are in place to keep male dominance intact.
Choose YOU:
Regardless of what society has to offer and what anyone has to offer, you should trust your intuition and your beliefs. No one should be able to put you in shame just because you don’t fit their definition of what a woman ought to be. Choose to be your authentic self through it all.