Women’s power of deterrence – The Hindu

A woman can shift her stress response from her instinctive maternal ‘tend and defend’ and upgrade it to the destructive ‘fight mode’. 
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

I watched the Republic Day parade on television on January 26, showcasing India’s firepower and hair-raising aerobatics with great pride. The demonstration of such military might is aimed at deterring any attack on India’s sovereignty. The message of the power of deterrence is subtle but strong.

Watching the unending flow of pilgrims for Pongala, a women-only ritual at the Attukal temple in Thiruvanantha-puram on March 13, left me with a similar feeling, the women’s power of deterrence.

Men and women react to stress differently. In men, stress activates the rostral prefrontal cortex, which deals with strategy planning, and inhibits the left orbitofrontal area, which deals with reward and punishment.

As a result, men either get angry and fight or decide on a strategy to withdraw. This “fight or flight” is the hallmark of the male stress response. In contrast, women respond to stress by activating the limbic system and invoking the “tend and defend” strategy — a nicer, kinder, maternal way to deal with it.

Attukal Pongala is celebrated every year with women cooking sweet porridge for the goddess and sharing it. Women from all over the world celebrate it, praying to the incarnation of Goddess Parvathy who fought injustice.

Legend has it that Kannaki was a devoted wife married to a wealthy businessman, Kovalan, who lived in the Kaveripattanam area of Tamil Nadu. Her husband’s infatuation with a dancer did not go unnoticed by her, but she believed it would pass, which it eventually did. However, by then, all her husband’s wealth was gone. She was quick to forgive her repentant husband and start their life anew. They decided to go to Madurai and sell their last possession, a gem-studded anklet, to raise money to start a business. Unbeknownst to them, the Queen of Madurai had lost a lookalike anklet, and the royal security staff was frantically searching for it, frisking everyone. Kovalan was promptly apprehended on an alleged charge of theft, arrested, and sentenced. Kannaki rushed to the royal court to point out the mistake. The queen acknowledged the mix-up, but by then, Kovalan had been executed.

The irate Kannaki could not take it any more. An ardent devotee of Agni, the god of fire, Kannaki invoked him and requested him to burn down the evil empire, which he promptly did, reducing the city to ashes.

Filled with a heavy heart, repentant Kannaki decided to walk down to Kanyakumari, and then head to Koodungallur, a town in north Kerala. She stopped at the bank of a small stream, the Killi river, where an elderly gentleman helped her cross the stream and take rest. The next morning, she appeared in his dream and asked him to create a temple at that spot, and thus the Attukal Bhagavathy temple was founded. The story bolsters the belief that the mother goddess does not tolerate injustice to women.

To the neurobiologists, it proves that given the circumstances, a woman can shift her stress response from her instinctive maternal “tend and defend” and upgrade it to the destructive “fight mode”. The circumstances that flip the switch, however, are still unclear.

The Attukal Pongala is a demonstration of the potential of women-power in case of an injustice. Let us pray that it acts as a deterrence. Just like the missiles and the firepower.

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