Why patriarchy still fears informed ladies
Every culture has its biggest hits of sexist knowledge, the one-liners people consider like axioms. In India, one of the classics is:
“Jyada padhlikh kar dimag kharab ho jata hai ladkiyon ka.”
Meaning: “Way too much education damages women’s brains.”
It’s a line typically provided with the solemnity of medical recommendations, as though Newton’s regulations might ferment inside a lady’s head and turn her into something dangerous.
Honestly, the people that state this are entitled to an honor for imaginative fear.
Let’s interrogate the metaphor.
When they claim “dimag kharab,” do they visualize our minds curdling like a bowl of yogurt excluded in summertime heat?
Do stories and formulas mix inside our heads until we go sour?
Do extra degrees make us undrinkable, like ruined milk?
If that’s the metaphor, right here’s my counterclaim:
Knowledge doesn’t curdle. Lack of knowledge does.
And the only stink I scent is from outdated concepts deteriorating on the shelf.
Ladies who study excessive will “malfunction.”
There’s also this refined worry that females that examine too much will “breakdown.”
As if we’re faulty gizmos and one more phase of history or physics will fry our motherboards.
Get up. I’m not a Pentium cpu from 1998 Also if I were, I ‘d still be a lot more upgraded than the uncle duplicating this line in 2025
If anything, education and learning is the upgrade. It gives females firewall programs against exploitation. Internet search engine for possibilities. Antivirus protection from manipulative nonsense.
If your system can’t manage that, maybe you need the update.
What they really suggest
When someone states “her mind is spoiled,” below’s what they in fact imply.
- She concerns things.
- She does not nod obediently to rubbish.
- She has opinions, and worse, she articulates them.
- She understands she is worthy of equal pay, equal regard, equal options.
In short, her mind really did not get spoiled. It got activated.
In most cultures, ladies’s education and learning is dealt with like a seasoning.
Just sufficient to make her decent. Sprinkle a degree or two so she looks “nice” in the marriage market.
However add excessive? God restricted she gets a PhD. Suddenly, she’s “over-seasoned.” Bitter. Unpalatable. She’ll check out the small print on dowries. She won’t “change” to a male who assumes making instantaneous noodles counts as household chores.
So they brand her as “ruined.”
Except I’m not your curry. My education and learning isn’t suggested to fit your taste buds.
Every culture has its version
This isn’t distinctively Indian.
- In 19 th-century Europe, medical professionals alerted that higher education would certainly harm ladies’s reproductive body organs.
- In the united state, ladies were informed that way too much reading would certainly create “hysteria.”
- Partially of Africa and the Middle East today, extremists still burn women’ institutions.
Across societies, the message coincides: an educated lady is a risk.
And dangers must be regulated.
Why the anxiety runs deep
At its core, the panic around “over-educated” females isn’t really regarding education and learning. it’s about power.
A woman with a level isn’t simply holding a piece of paper; she’s holding evidence that she can gain, suggest, and go out of situations others desire her entraped in.
Education makes her much less dependent on family, much less controlled by in-laws, and much less flexible in marriages.
That’s why the pushback is so solid.
It’s not her mind they’re bothered with. It’s their grip sliding.
Patriarchy flourishes on ladies not understanding enough.
If you do not understand finance, you’ll never ever question just how building is split.
If you don’t recognize your legal rights, you won’t challenge harassment.
If you’ve never ever been instructed background, you will not understand how much time females have actually dealt with the very same fights prior to you.
Lack of knowledge isn’t a mishap. It’s an approach.
So when somebody jeers that a lady’s “dimag kharab ho gaya” after way too many publications, what they’re truly stating is: she’s no longer simple to manage.
That’s the genuine fear.
Since once a female understands exactly how to read, she won’t simply review recipes.
She’ll check out agreements, objection indicators, court judgments, and sometimes, the fine print that falls whole systems.
The real brain damage
You know what actually damages women’s minds? Not education.
- Being denied it.
- Being informed their worth lies in food preparation, not creating.
- Being silenced in class so boys can “radiate.”
- Being forced to trade their desires for dowries.
That’s the genuine ruining mind. Not calculus. Not chemistry. Not critical thinking.
My spoiled variation
If excessive studying has ruined me, after that here’s what that putridity looks like:
- I do not perplex obedience with regard.
- I refuse to nod at WhatsApp College forwards.
- I will not accept “log kya kahenge” (what will certainly people claim) as a life strategy.
- I bargain salaries. I authorize agreements after reading them.
- I treat my education like Wi-fi: it connects me to worlds you can’t visualize.
If that’s being ruined, after that I want every female in the world to be spoiled.
Educated females are dangerous.
Not because they hurt culture, but since they dismantle power structures that rely upon females’s silence.
The Taliban understands this. Tyrannical programs understand this. Patriarchal families understand this.
That’s why the first target of control is constantly the classroom. Knowledge makes females much less flexible, less gullible, much less obedient. It makes us pricey for those that desire us inexpensive.
So yes, education has actually spoiled me.
It has actually wrecked my capability to sit quietly while stupidness parades as wisdom. It has damaged my tolerance for pretension. It has actually corroded my patience with fragile vanities.
And if you assume that makes me unfit for your authorization, let me claim it plainly: I wasn’t studying to earn your authorization. If that means my dimag is kharab, then I really hope every girl matures to have one.