We like to push each other…
No, boo, he is dominating you
One of my favourite pass times, like most people my age (I hope), is to watch YouTube videos. There is one creator I particularly like and I get a niggling feeling that she is in a not so happy marriage.
Why do I say that? Because I recognize some signs around marriages and most other relationships. I am mostly correct about people’s feelings for each other just by observing them. I am attuned to their joy around each other and/or their struggle for power within a relationship. I have honed this skill, maybe because as my sister says, we grew up not being caring as much as being careful (around my temperamental father) and so we pay attention to people’s changes in moods or energies. Or maybe, because I spend a lot of time reading about society’s expectations around people’s behaviours and how they respond. I think it is also a Mangalorean aunty trait- I am both and I have the trait- always curious about what is happening “over there”.
Anywho, the other day, said content creator was sharing about her recent trip with her husband to this beautiful country where they went trekking. She mentioned that it was incredibly strenuous because of how rough the path was and also because she sort of outdid herself. The reason for the latter is because her husband and she love to ‘push each other’ and the minute someone went longer or more ahead (pardon the non-trekking parlance), the other tried to up themselves and the ‘pushing’ continued. In the end, both of them were rewarded with breathtaking views.
How exhausting, I thought, literally and figuratively.
***
The four-minute mile.
On 6th May 1954, Roger Bannister broke the record by running a mile in less than four minutes. Before him, plenty held records for running a mile in slightly more than those minutes. In 1861 an Irishman named Heaviside. In 1923, Paavo Nurmi. Jack Lovelock in 1933 and Sydney Wooderson in 1937. Arne Andersson and Gunder Haeg in 1944 and 1945 respectively. Less than four minutes for a mile was considered humanly impossible until Bannister did it. Once done, the record was broken again just a few weeks later by John Landy1. Such feats, considered impossible, look within reach, once accomplished by someone else because one’s mental barriers are broken and a new imagination of what is possible takes form. Thus, athletes and sportspersons are pushed into achieving humanly impossible feats by each other and they then dominate the leader board.
***
Faith Kipyegon might just become the first woman to break the four-minute-mile record in a few days in France2. No woman has broken the record in 71 years. She says she would like to do it to empower other women- the next generation- and mostly for her daughter, Alyn. She would like women and her daughter to be able to imagine new possibilities.
***
A few weeks ago, my husband and I attended a wedding of our close and dear friend. The wedding was a mixing of two cultures and regions, as the bride is from Uttarakhand and our friend, the groom, grew up in Kerala and has roots in Tamil Nadu. Once the rites were completed, a friend of the groom, invited guests, on stage, to share some words of wisdom with the couple. Something like a toast. I would never have gone, perhaps, I was not expected to either. But I thought deeply about what I would have said, if I would have chosen to speak.
***
Men have always dominated women. Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex written in 19493, lays out quite clearly how women are denied political, economic and social power, so that they are always dependent on men. A married woman is second to her husband because of the privileges conferred on her due to her marital status. In most cases, according to de Beauvoir, women’s sexual pleasure is dependent on men’s dominance of them. Mistresses, on the other hand, have slightly more power, but are second to patriarchal institutions that sanction their existence. A sex worker is altogether on the margins of society as she exists with no legal protection and even if she has some, she becomes eligible for police surveillance (pg. 680).
Dominance of women by men is pervasive in other aspects of life. The husband will impose a political opinion on his wife … but the wife retains her own vision of the world (pg. 567).
Because he dominates her and she wants revenge, she will clutch on to values that are not his.
She relies on the authority of her mother, father, brother or some masculine personality who seems superior to her… to prove him wrong.
She continues to contradict him systematically, attack him, insult him, and instill in him an inferiority complex (pg. 567).
de Beauvoir summarises an episode about a couple in the book with the line, “married life for them had become a series of scenes repeated over and over in which neither of them would give in turning the least quarrel into a titanic duel between man and woman” (Pg.569).
***
According to de Beauvoir, a man will contest another man but will consider the woman inessential to any competition.
***
Before raising the toast, I would remind myself that I am a feminist, a good friend to the groom, a teacher but also a mere guest at a wedding party where two families with complex histories have come together. I would tell, the bride and groom, that life outside is full of competition and one-upmanship. One is always competing with someone else- for a job, for some limelight, for space, a seat, a piece of cake or the last word. Everywhere, one is met with an exhausting struggle for domination. But that struggle should end the minute one comes home to a spouse or partner. In the presence of your partner the only thing you should be able to do is rest, relax and let go. With your partner, there should be no pushing, but comfort and healing- a tender acknowledgement, or even a celebration, of the perfection of the person and where they are at the moment. But only in one place, you must always outdo the other. And that is the race to apologise. To acknowledge your role or fault. No matter what the matter, or who is at fault, if you dominate the leader board, in the highest number of apologies tendered first, you truly win.
All about the four-minute mile. Cavendish. R. (2004). The first Sub-Four Minute Mile. History Today. Vol 54(V). Retrieved from: https://www.historytoday.com/archive/first-sub-four-minute-mile
Graham, P. (2025). Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon tries to become 1st woman to break 4-minute mile next week in Paris. Retrieved from: https://apnews.com/article/faith-kipyegon-4-minute-mile-873d504a3817d860a39d37314d7bebfd
de Beauvoir, S. (1949). The Second Sex. Vintage Books, New York.
Marriage, if it becomes a space for competition, loses its essence as a space for comfort and healing - what a profound insight, articulated so beautifully! I like the vignette-style of writing too!