What is Manhood? Fifa Cricket Jessica…

Did Zidane’s head-butting, Shoaib Akhtar’s slapping, Jessica’s murder & Jethmalani’s advocacy link to Manhood? Killer of his wife after she taunted his manhood has been convicted of murder yesterday.

Definition of Manhood
The definition of manhood is associated with power. Power is the capacity to dominate, to control, capacity to act in powerful ways. Human beings possess the power to meet their needs, the power to fight injustice and oppression; the power of muscles and brain and the power of love. unfortunately men have come to see power as a capacity to impose control on others and on their own unruly emotions

Manhood and womanhood
While historically a 'real' man was seen as a protector, powerful and the provider; woman was viewed as the caretaker, nurturer and peacemaker. The man the protector, powerful, and the provider, were no longer. As a society we are finding ourselves borrowing from various cultures especially western we come in contact with, which in turn challenge our own value systems.

The insecure confused people especially youth join political leaders; gangsters; diamond dealers and car syndicates, others become cash thieves - all for the sake of maintaining masculinity. Other men direct their feelings of powerlessness and marginalization to rape and violence. They turn to abuse and misuse of women and children. This is an unhealthy approach given the fact that most of the problems come about because of the powerlessness of men and other factors. The definition of manhood needs to be adjusted to the current social, economic and political realities.

Manhood in Jessica lal case
In another bizarre twist to the Jessica Lall case, senior counsel Ram Jethmalani on Thursday told a Bench of the Delhi High Court that Jessica was not shot over drinks dispute but because she 'challenged the manhood' of the killer.

Is manhood means advocacy to deceive and manipulate the court?
John Boorman's movie of the James Dickey novel "Deliverance.": Ed wins at the survival game, and in the process loses his awkwardness and squeamishness, discovering a new self-confidence in matching wits against a primitive antagonist. But the only discernable result of this character transformation is Ed's skill at lying to extricate himself and his friends from any police investigation. The final irony is very black; Ed's assumption of "manhood" means that he has perfected the ability to deceive and manipulate people.

HUSBAND KILLS OVER SEX TAUNT
A man who killed his wife after she taunted him about his manhood has been convicted of murder at Winchester Crown Court on Nov 7, 2006. Michael Gifford-Hull, 43, strangled his wife Kirsi, 38, then hid her body at their home in Winchester before burying it in a shallow grave. He will be sentenced today. Juhani and Leena Pihlajamaki fought back tears as they finally saw justice for their youngest daughter. As the jury in the six-week trial delivered their verdict on Gifford-Hull, the couple clasped hands, and said: "There is justice."

Zidane’s head-butting in World Cup
To day Zinedine Zidane received a rousing welcome when he played football with children in a dusty Bangladeshi village. Zidane, who retired from soccer after being sent off in July's World Cup final for head-butting Italy's Marco Materazzi, travelled to Kamarbasulia village, 50 km north of Dhaka, to see a credit distribution scheme that is helping local women to beat poverty. He was invited to Bangladesh by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus to open a $1 million food plant, a 50:50 joint venture by Yunus's microfinancing institution Grameen Bank and French food giant Danone.

A man receives 51 slaps in public
A man guilty of raping a deaf and mute neighbor in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur, will receive 51 slaps in public, the village chief said on Nov 9, 2006.

Shoaib Akhtar
Pakistani pacer Shoaib Akhtar has been given a two-year ban for doping by the Pakistan Cricket Board. On top of this controversy came the startling revelation that he had slapped his coach Bob Woolmer over the choice of music in the team bus. A day after Colonel Anil Kaul, the ICC-appointed security officer with the Pakistan team, claimed the slapping was due to insulting the Indian culture by the coach when Shoaib was singing Indian Song.

Ponting Sex Scandal in Jaipur
A news channel said about the Kangaroos cricket team’s sexual manhood in the hotel at Jaipur. Team was dancing singing under the influence of alcohol. Suddenly foreign ladies entered the hall. The players began to become nude and started to do so with the visitors’ ladies. They are any how separated by the police or hotel authorities. This was published in a newspaper of Jaipur. But Hotel authorities are denying this. Insult of Shard Pawar on the stage was also their manhood.

Is tolerance on Tamil in Srilanka issue manhood?
Condemning the shelling by Sri Lankan forces in eastern Sri Lanka that killed 65 civilians, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today said the Centre should ponder how long it could tolerate the Sri Lankan Army's atrocities against Tamils there.

Terrorism is manhood against humanity
Today ive people were killed when a man lobbed a grenade into a mosque in Jammu and Kashmir during Friday prayers while another bomb targeted a paramilitary bunker elsewhere.
The irony of the present procedure in court is that under the current law, it is the state and not the victim's family that fight the case. "Even if I want to, I can't fight the case. So, in cases where the rich and powerful are accused, it becomes a classic David v/s Goliath saga," said Sabrina Lall, Jessica's sister.

Manhood in Politics to divide the country
Today Union minister and LJP leader Ramvilas Paswan has demanded that all Muslims should be given reservation in government jobs, and backward Muslims should be given reservation in legislature too.

Manhood: SHAKESPEARE NAVIGATORS
** Banquo says to the witches, "you should be women, / And yet your beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so" (1.3.45-47). The "should" means that they look like women, probably because they are wearing dresses. Part of the weird sisters' weirdness is the fact that they appear to be both women and men. [Scene Summary]

** When Lady Macbeth is telling herself that she can murder King Duncan, she cries out, "Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty!" (1.5.40-43). If the spirits "unsex" her, she won't be bothered by a woman's kindess or remorse. She will be a cruel killer, like a man. [Scene Summary]

** When Macbeth tells his wife that they're not going to kill King Duncan, after all, she accuses him of being a coward, and he asks her to just be quiet, saying, "Prithee, peace: / I dare do all that may become a man; / Who dares do more is none" (1.7.45-47). He means that a real man wouldn't commit murder. His wife has the opposite view, and sarcastically replies, "What beast was't, then, / That made you break this enterprise to me? / When you durst do it, then you were a man" (1.7.47-49). She wins the argument.

** When Macbeth tries to convince two men that Banquo is their enemy, they don't respond as he wants them to. He then asks saracastically if they are willing to let Banquo keep their families in poverty forever. Instead of showing the hot anger that Macbeth is looking for, First Murderer only says, "We are men, my liege." Then Macbeth gets even more sarcastic, saying, "Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men; / As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, / Shoughs, water-rugs and demi-wolves, are clept / All by the name of dogs" (3.1.90-94). He goes on to say that they won't be real men until they're ready to kill Banquo. [Scene Summary]

** As the Scottish forces march to join the English in Birnam wood, Lennox comments that among the English "there is Siward's son, / And many unrough youths that even now / Protest their first of manhood" (5.2.9-11). "Unrough youths" are those who are so young that they have yet to grow beards. In this context, "protest" means almost the opposite of what it does now; rather than complaining about their manhood, these youths are ready to prove that they are men. [Scene Summary]

** In the last scene of the play, when Macduff tells Macbeth that he was not "of woman born," Macbeth answers, "Accursed be that tongue that tells me so, / For it hath cow'd my better part of man!" (5.8.17-18). Macduff has made him feel fear, and to Macbeth's way of thinking, the "better part of man" is courage.
Later in the same scene, Ross tells Siward the news of his son's death:
Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt:He only lived but till he was a man;The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'dIn the unshrinking station where he fought,But like a man he died. (5.8.39-43)
This was Young Siward's first battle, and he didn't prove that he was a man until he fought Macbeth without shrinking away from the challenge. [Scene Summary]

By Premendra Agrawal