Why Successful Women Still Struggle With Self-Esteem?
Questioner: Let me share an incident from our class in relation to gender class. We performed a self-esteem analysis test, and we had cracked one of the toughest exams. The results came out that the boys have much higher self-esteem than girls. So if that's the case with us, what will be the case with the women of the rural areas and low strata?
Acharya Prashant:** You see, let's see. What you're saying is you have encountered a paradox. Now, a paradox really cannot exist. What you're saying is all your batchmates have cleared a very tough entrance exam, but the males have much higher self-esteem, as measured in some tests, compared to the women that have comparatively lower self-esteem. So what's your hypothesis here? Can you investigate? Your hypothesis is clearing the exam will give you high self-esteem. That's your hypothesis. And because the hypothesis is being invalidated here, you are puzzled. You're asking, "How is it happening?"
Now, obviously, if the facts don't agree with the hypothesis, there is something wrong with the hypothesis, not the fact. If you have measured facts correctly, if your test was properly administered, and if really the girls have comparatively lower self-esteem, then that's a fact. The hypothesis that clearing an entrance exam would make you feel better about yourself stands invalidated.
Now, why does it stand invalidated? There is a reason. Look at Prakriti. You understand Prakriti? We are talking of Mother Nature, right? We are talking of the thing that gives rise to our bodies, right? We are talking of that. That's Prakriti. Look at Prakriti. What is the role that Prakriti has assigned you? You are saying, "I did something, and therefore I'll have higher esteem. I did something, so I'll have higher self-esteem." Right?
Now, if I assign you the role to fetch vegetables from the market, both of you, and instead you fetch something else, let's say diamonds, while she fetches vegetables, both of you have gone to the market and done something. But have you done what I asked you to do? Therefore, in front of me, you will not feel very confident, right? You have done something great. You have fetched diamonds from the market, but you have not done what you were supposed to do.
Now, what are you supposed to do in the scheme of Mother Nature as a woman? Please tell me. What does Mother Nature want you to do as a woman? Look at the jungle again. She wants you to reproduce. That's all. She wants the DNA to be proliferated as much as possible.
Now, you might have done a great job in cracking the entrance exam, but you have not done what she wanted you to do. Therefore, you don't feel good about yourself, and you won't even know why you don't feel good about yourself because, inwardly, in your consciousness, you are still carrying her mandate.
His mandate is to go out and succeed in the world. So when he does go out and succeeds in the world, he feels very fulfilled. And that's the story of a lot of accomplished women in the world. Even if they are very successful professionally, a kind of a void remains within, and they don't even know why. Often I meet them, and they discuss this with me. And this is the reason.
The reason is, as long as you continue to identify with your physical self, you will continue to be burdened with the mandate of your physical self.
And the mandate of your physical self is not that you become intellectually great. That's not what Mother Nature wants you to do. She wants you to nicely settle down in a nest and have babies.
Now, how will then doing even the greatest job in the world contribute to your self-esteem if you have not done what she wants you to do? The only way, then, to feel fulfilled and self-assured is to disown the job she has given you. And she has given you, I repeat, a very animalistic job. Do you want to continue living by her instructions?
That's my request and question to all men and women present here. You know, to the extent that if you do not do her bidding, if you do not live by her instructions, she gives you physical diseases. You are medical students; you might be knowing it better than I do. Women who choose not to live by their biological mandate are more prone to certain reproductive diseases. That's a punishment that she gives you if you do not do what she has sent you to do.
And she has not sent you to feel fulfilled or feel liberated or be enlightened in life. Prakriti does not want any kind of fulfillment or liberation or enlightenment for you. All she wants from you is kids, and lots of them. Do that, and Prakriti is happy. Even if you remain very dumb all your life but produce a lot of babies, Prakriti is happy.
But if you go the way of consciousness, as you must, then there are hurdles. I can only say that it's worth taking up those challenges. It's worth fighting those hurdles. Are you getting it?
I've seen this repeatedly, and it hurts me no end. In my time, we had a batch of 350 at IIT Delhi. Only 13 were girls, and some of them had really good JEE ranks. In fact, most of them had better JEE ranks than me. But just as you mentioned right now, the confidence levels, the level of self-assurance, was lower in them compared to their male batchmates. The reason is the same.
You might have accomplished much, but both your body and the society, what is the question they ask of you? The question is, "When are you going to settle? Beta aage kya socha hai?" Now, she might be a JEE topper. She might be a medical entrance topper. But that's what both of these ask her: her body and the society. This is the question that awaits her at every turn. "When are you going to get settled?" And after she gets settled, "When are you going to have babies?"
So how can she feel fulfilled or complete or confident just by clearing an entrance exam? Clearing an entrance exam is just 10% of her job. According to Prakriti, Prakriti says 90% of your job lies somewhere else. It lies in the nest. And if you are a failure in the nest, then irrespective of your professional or academic or intellectual accomplishments, you are a failure.
Do you want to buy this definition? Do you want to buy this criterion? If you buy this criterion, then I'm afraid you can't live a fulfilled life, especially as a woman.
I'm grateful for the first presentation that there was, and it added to my knowledge because several of the big names that you displayed there, I didn't know of them, especially the ones from the medical science field. But the ones that I knew of, several of them I know for sure, you read their biographies, they were not well received by the society either throughout their life or at several points in their lives. Marie Curie is one such name. We know of her intellectual and professional accomplishments, and yet the society was not very favorable to her.
You have to get this very, very straight. Society comes from us, and we are our bodies. So when you say society is the oppressor, it is really the configuration of the human brain that's the oppressor. Our oppressor lies in our cells. Our oppressor sits in our DNA.
We cannot just say society. What do you mean by society? Society is the public. Society is people. Society is human beings. What drives those human beings? You say their desires and their opinions and their ideologies. Where do their desires and opinions come from? They come from the way your bodies are. Just as everything about a bird comes from the way its body is, just as everything about a fish comes from the way its body is.
The real oppressor is the body. The woman must challenge her body. The woman must learn to channelize her body towards her real goal. The woman must learn to disown the goal that this male-centered society has given her. And even when we say that the society is male-centered, actually it is not. Because in this game of exploitation, both the man and the woman are partners. Just that the man is the active player and the woman is the passive partner. Right? So, that has to be challenged, and that is my request.
Do not take your biological mandate as the purpose of your life. The purpose of your life is to rise higher. The purpose of your life is to realize your bondages, one after the other. Challenge them and break them.
And the body is, in itself, a primary and a major bondage. Do not take the body as an asset in itself. Even if the body is an asset, it is an asset to be used in service of liberation. You have to use the body in a way that aids your liberation. Right? The body is not an end in itself. The body is, at best, a means. Use the body rightly. Use the body as a vehicle that takes you to your real destination. Do not live for the sake of the body. Do not live to fulfill the desires of the body. That's not what we are born for, neither the man nor the woman.
Questioner: Thank you.
Acharya Prashant: See, I understand my responses go way beyond the scope of the question, right? But if I limit my responses to what your questions ask for, then there is no progress, right? We need to go beyond.
