The year 2016! It’s passing by so fast. It seems like only yesterday, that we were ringing in the New Year and celebrating another year of progress. This year for women’s day I decided to read what others have written and mulled over this year rather than write a piece myself. However, as destiny would have it, the news app on my phone decided to push me back to the girl power side. This app sends me news articles from all over the country and beyond. This particular eye catching and heart clenching piece was about a small town in rural India, where women are first married off and then are prostituted by their husband’s families. This same app sprung another story on the very same day wherein a few women out to celebrate their womanhood created a ruckus on board a local train. Today, I want to dig deep into this charade we are hiding behind, so at the outset I’d like to tell the boys, read on so you can help and girls, read on because it’s time we be the change we need and want to see.
Happy women’s day everyone! That is what we heard endlessly last week... Not only women, but girls and strangely men as well were wished. Women's day! Why do we have a ‘Women’s day’? International Women’s Day is annually held on March 8 to celebrate women’s achievements throughout history and across nations. This day has been celebrated since 1911 and yes a whole lot of progress has taken place since. We will talk solely about India here. And sadly again, it is an India divided. Divided by caste, class and creed and stuck in a limbo because of so called traditions. On one side of the spectrum we have the empowered who are taking the world by storm, fighting the odds and beating them, making themselves at home in the cutthroat male dominated world. Then we have the jugglers who have found that perfect balance between their homes and their careers. We then have those women who are over empowered! Those who will do what they please, take what they want and then hide behind the law to ‘protect’ their reputation (I’m sure you know what I mean).
On one side of the world we have women burning their bras and demanding their rights and on the other we have those who’s most basic right, the right to live, is threatened. I’m not saying women in India should join in on the bra burning ways of the west, nor am I saying that we ought to let go of every traditional value we have. All I need to convey is that the rudimentary rights of life, expression and freedom need to be covered. As women ourselves, we are responsible for the way we are looked at, spoken about and treated. How many of us can actually say in all honesty, that we haven’t spoken ill about a fellow woman? We have at some point called a woman who enjoys the company of more than one man a ‘slut’, but her male counterpart is a ‘stud’ to us. Our own judgement of our own sex and the way we accept stereotypes encourages those of the smaller mind-set to continue along this self-destructive path.
For years we have allowed certain things to continue unchecked. Let’s begin there. Why are we okay with being objectified as sex objects? Why are we okay with people dictating to us how we should and shouldn’t dress? Why do we allow the men in our lives to talk down to us? Why do we sacrifice our careers to stay at home and look after the family? These are some of the whys an urban Indian woman has to ask herself. With the rural Indian woman, there is a whole other set of questions for her to ponder.
The section of society actually suffering are those who have a voice but are not allowed to use it, the victims of a world that stopped moving ahead. Where the basic mentality remains unchanged due to pig headed rigidity, scope for improvement gets minimised. Where the so called ‘heads’ of the family dictate the roles that the ‘heart’ of the family plays, the fallacy will continue to remain. For a body can still be alive if the brain is dead, but not with a heart that doesn’t beat.
When we are completely preoccupied with our own lives and our own problems we fail to look at the bigger picture. Every woman needs to band together and be a strength for the other. Mariela Dabbah said ‘Women who support other women are confident, generous, visionaries’. Confident, generous, visionaries is in our blood, let’s exhibit our innate nature. Stand up for our kind. Not just in word but also in deed as well. Writing about it to encourage you to join the band wagon for the cause of womankind is a tiny step I’m taking, because ‘I’m every woman’. What about you?
