I tend to disagree with our people, when they try to label, the females as the “tender gender.” In Urdu language, there is an expression signifying this unique characteristic, of the daughters of Mother Eve. The same soft and tender lady tends to bear and nurture life for nine long months in her body, which most men, including yours truly can never possibly endure. In my humble opinion, the writers, the poets and the linguists of the Urdu language were stuck in the phenomenon, that only saw women as the “beloved.” Being an ardent fan of Urdu literature and poetry, I enjoyed the classics, that went on, in elaborate details highlighting the relationships and affairs between the loved ones. Typically, a jilted and rejected lover would turn into a poet and gave us some unforgiveable and admirable classic poetry. But fundamentally, it was quite a uni-dimensional or rather sexist approach. It was portraying a lady nothing beyond a symbol of beauty. Once this symbol of beauty became some lucky man’s life partner, that man felt quite insecure and perhaps made sure that she was properly wrapped and covered. The cover whether in the form of head to toe burqa, niqab, hijab etc. was there toprotect that symbol of beauty from the presumably prying and lusting eyes. The protective gear was there to give comfort to the worried husband, father or brother, that a lady will be protected and hence she would remain chaste, faithful and loyal. I realize that this issue is ultra-sensitive and I have touched on this issue here in the past as well. It is worth a mention here again, as a debate has ensued about this topic again. What I find quite hypocritical of this whole argument, is a man who wants to enforce this attire on the lady in the family, rarely shows refrain, when it comes to his own gaze on other women. So, invoking of religion and religious edicts about the hijab and niqab are very hollow. To treat a woman as she is some chattel or a belonging is inhumane and shows the deep rooted male insecurity. A female is a person, a complete thinking human being, who can make a reasonable decision about how much and how to cover her body. For a man, to intervene in thatprivate and highly personal area is a major and unnecessary infringement. Rather than conditioning a male psyche to treat the fellow female as a person, a living breathing human being, we tend to enforce her incarceration in that clothing. At multiple times, here and on Twitter, I have expressed that it is a personal choice of the female, how she wants to present herself to the outside world. A man should steer clear from that arena completely. There should be ample trust that a lady can handle herself in a manner which is appropriate and acceptable by any standards of any society. The religious circles and the scholars also emphasize on strict segregation of both sexes, because it is expected that co-mingling of sexes would lead to lewd conduct and eventually to the immoral acts. There is some truth to this assertion. It all depends upon your values, conditioning and education. The appropriate analogy here would be of a vehicle. A vehicle can be a mode of transportation or a weapon of lethal destruction, depending on how you end up using it. You will not stop driving a vehicle, just because someone somewhere got into an accident. Similarly, your body comes with proper brakes, controlled by your central processing unit, commonly called as your brain. The religious circles are concerned about the odds of probability. Understood and the likelihood can be greatly minimized by the introduction of a very basic concept of respecting the other person as a person and not solely some object of pleasure. All my life, here in the US, I have worked with many women of all ages and backgrounds. This is supposed to be the open and so called liberated society. Most women in the business world conduct themselves in a manner to compete with their male counter parts based on their skills and the industry I work for has been very female dominated. Yet in our daily inter actions and conduct we are more focused on our business goals and not each other’s appearances. The organizations take sexual harassment very seriously and any discrimination, based on gender or sexual orientation is prohibited by state and federal laws. We see many Muslim females in the business world here too, donning a head scarf or hijab and people accept and respect it, as their personal choice. The people are accommodating and respectful, so long as it remains an element of personal attire and not a political statement of self -righteousness. In my rather unique opinion, we the men are much weaker than most females. We internalize our doubts and fears and rarely or very sparingly express them openly. Why, because it is construed as a weakness of the male, the proverbial hunter. A hunter who can fearlessly battle with deadly beasts outside, but cannot overcome some very basic internal fears.