It’s Women’s Day. And suddenly everybody is talking about celebrating womanhood. There are a lot of articles about women’s issues. Various programmes organised for women on television. There are a lot of schemes for women, discounts at various places and the likes. I like this concept of celebrating womanhood. But I have issues with one day for doing the same. Although even this one day is good to begin with all this seems like a farce.
What happens to women everyday is of utmost importance. There are a lot of women’s issues that have not even been addressed. For instance wife battering, being raped by their own husbands an so on.
What I believe women want is basic respect for themselves. Respect as an individual. They want their worth. I guess what a lot of liberal feminists are trying to say is that women are neither superior or inferior they are just different. And that men need to respect this difference.
There are a lot of isolated examples of high achieving women. But most of them belong to urban India. So who cares what happens to 70% of the women in rural India? Even today most of the rural women dont work outside of home. Their problems are graver than they appear to be. Many of them are regularly beaten up by their drunken husbands. This day makes no difference to their lives.
And even if we consider so-called modern Indian women, how many of them dont have trouble managing their careers and home simultaneously? Have we gone into their homes. Only financial independence is not all. At their work places many women are harrassed. Most women have been found be held back by the glass ceiling. So where is the progress? empowerment of women?
We have taken just little strides towards empowering women. There is a very long way to go. Instead of celebrating women’s day on a particular day, we must celebrate womanhood everyday. Instead of having some discounts and all, we must work at grassroot level to eradicate the discrimination against women. Only if we succeed at empowering these women can we truly empower our nation.
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