Gender Knot Allan Jhonsan has nicely raised the issue of pain and confusion which men and women experience while
living with gender inequality in a patriarch society. He has shown how we all participate in this oppressive system which we did not create and how each of us can contribute for its dissolution.
At the outset the author has described as if men and women are assembled themselves in
some kind of workshop on Gender Issue. Men and women are divided in two groups according to the gender. They brainstorm to list out the advantages and disadvantages they might have in their own gender in a workplace and also the advantage and disadvantage for the other gender they think. When the lists were compared it is seen most of the things are similar but it is bit shorter than women’s list. Men miss many of the items of advantages and disadvantages they get .Though they know what they get and what women do not get, but it certainly indicates the reality of gender inequality in the entire society. Definitely there is pain and confusion, men and women experience by living with gender inequality. Still this binds men and women in a knot of fear, anger and pain, of blame, defensiveness, guilt and denial.
As any one pulls it hard the knot becomes tighter because we are
trapped in patriarchal legacy. The author explains
what is patriarchy. It gives the meaning of a society where both men and women participate. The society is male dominated, male identified and male centered with obsession and also oppression of women as one of the aspect. A knitter knows how to untangle a knot, one has to shake the entire thing gently until all the threads are loosen. In a similar fashion the author has shaken the partriarch society until each of the constituent thread like male dominance, male identification, male centered, obsession and control becomes analytically clear. The author has tried to convince that we can achieve much better and that our individual choices are matter more than we can ever know.