Women and Perception of Insecurity

Abstract

The female child succumbs to myriad ways of marginalizing and role-modelling along with upbringing at a very early age. As she grows, she discovers that her biological self is contributing to vulnerability. Consequently, she tries to keep away from physical proximity to men and isolates herself from precarious surroundings. Alongside this, time assumes a situational factor imposing restrictions on physical mobility. As a result, spatial mobility becomes a challenge. This double calamity of exercising conscious control of the body and behaviour to align it with time and space is excessively overburdening. This apart host of extraneous factors works to the contrary. Religion is the most important among them. Religion imposes worship restrictions setting codes of purity and pollution. In male-dominant societies, some form of prejudice is spread through media, art, and literature depicting women as objects of erotic and aesthetic embodiment. In contemporary societies, selective discrimination begins even before birth and continues through upbringing by way of customs and traditions. The cumulative impact of several such extraneous factors triggers a compounding effect on her biological self, leading to the perception of insecurity. This paper focuses on how and why women perceive insecurity.