Satire: Voicing for Men’s Rights in the Context of the Feminist Film Mrs

Chopping, mincing, cleaning, washing, and frying are the sounds of the kitchen that echo louder than the voices of women oppressed under patriarchy. These sounds have been intricately captured by the film Mrs., and they are too loud for men to consume. The film has garnered attention for it demonises men, according to men’s rights activists and organisation, The Save the Indian Family Foundation. Men still living in the clutches of patriarchy have it hard compared to women. It is a conflicting situation for men when their female counterparts do all of the undervalued domestic work. It is the need of the hour to recognize the rights of men to oppress.

The movie Mrs is an exaggerated narrative of women playing their victim card. The feminist discourse about the movie is robbing men of their truth from coming into the limelight. How dare women speak up? How can women speak the truth of their lives and threaten the comfort and privilege that men have had since time immemorial? The men's rights activists definitely have the morale to question the feminists. The members of Save the Indian Family Foundation are adapted to viewing their male gaze alone in films and use feminism as a concept that is anti- men. Thanks to their patriarchal minds. One man goes on to say, “Cooking is meditation”. We wonder if men, being so stressed, are more in need of meditation. Why don’t they just switch roles and meditate? It might as well help them gain better mental health. Women are meant to multitask. They can work outside the home and also teach men the art of ‘meditation’.

Save the Indian Family Foundation is a unique organisation that has taken it upon itself to rescue Indian families that are endangered, with women realising their rights. The men have high moral grounds in demanding a family that profits from the labor of women. The only purpose of women’s lives is to serve the family. Even though women are formally trained to have a career of their own, they should settle for the greater calling and that is the Great Indian Family. Richa in the movie Mrs dares to think of a dance career when it is her husband who does the ‘real’ work. Why do women need a career when they and all their desires are taken care of by men? A tweet on platform X is rightly made by a men’s rights activist, “..70-80% material, clothes [sic], furniture and gadgets are craved and enjoyed by women..” The percentage shows that they have done thorough research on what is desired by men and women.

The feminists are running a propaganda campaign to dismantle the oppressive family structure on women. It is a woman’s job to reproduce, cook, and clean. A woman’s consent is completely unnecessary in bed. It is, after all, a man’s right to a woman's body. Even the Indian judiciary agrees with this patriarchal notion about women's bodily autonomy. The recent Allahabad High Court judgment that drew criticism for acquitting a man for committing unnatural sex that led to his wife’s death is a constant reminder that women are props in the hands of men. It brings us to question that since women enjoy the material aspects of a household, can’t they die a little in bed for men, this is the least a woman can do for her God-impersonated husband.

The movie for men is misleading in many ways. The characters of the husband and father-in-law of Richa’s are shown in bad taste. The men in the movie constantly remind Richa that a man’s job can be considered as work and not that of a woman’s obligation in her domestic sphere, her father-in-law gives scientific reasoning for fasting during the Hindu festival of Karwachauth, not permitting Richa to pursue her career, these are all done with the well-intended notion. However, feminists have a problem with Indian culture. After all, feminism is not an Indian product. It is not oppression if a man lays out the rules for a woman. How can an Indian family survive if a woman does not blindly follow what patriarchy asks of her?

The character Richa openly shows exhaustion over cooking what the men want. When it is the men who earn then there is absolutely no necessity to consider what the women of the house want to eat or even if they want to cook. Richa, as a character over-exaggerates the non-existent pain. Cooking should be easy with modern gadgets filled in a household. The female exhaustion is overrepresented by the filmmakers. A kitchen is filled with gadgets and ingredients that are required for cooking. So even if the space is congested or dark or ill-ventilated or has plumbing issues then those trivial problems should not be taken to the mighty men. They have a far greater responsibility of creating more submissive roles and role expectations for women. Therefore they would not be able to find time to create cleaner and accessible domestic space for women. Men decide and control the dish and the time at which it has to be served. The rest is a female’s problem. Doesn’t the patriarchal society become benevolent and generous to create empowered education where women and girls can learn to fix spaces of oppression on their own?

The men's rights activists have every right to question it. The women of the house are taken care of just like the animals. Mrs and Kottukaali in Tamil, show that daughters are no different from animals. They are fed, taken care of, and even chained to ensure they don’t walk out of the privileges that are served on a platter to them. Why do feminists demand equality when women are treated like animals? It is time for feminist propaganda to stop their facade.

Films have long patronised what Laura Mulvey calls the Male Gaze, a phallocentric perspective of what masculinity and femininity should be. It is blasphemy of the writers of Mrs to have shifted to the female gaze in understanding a married woman’s woes. A man is in the highest position to talk about a woman’s lived experience. Women cannot talk about their lived experiences. We do not need equality when we have men who pretentiously save women from men. After all not all men right?

- Authors Shruthi T. and Apeksha Singegol are Research scholars in Sociology at Christ University, Bangalore.