Happy Women's Day

 

Women’s Day is celebrated all over the world and wishes pour in, programs are organized, special offers are being made by business houses to make women feel special.  That’s great! Such a day dedicated in the name of women enable us to recognize the fact that women are treated with equity so as to build an inclusive society with gender parity.  However, a day does not change the way we think and behave until it comes from within and that which requires constant pursuit to break some of the taboos to overcome the mental models that have been built over a period of time. The thought process has to be backed by a constant practice of what and how we think.

The whole intention is to strengthen women and empower them.  But in reality, are we really providing them the needed strength? Just take the case of menstruation.  Let alone villages, even in the most advanced cities, mothers and relatives of girls instill a kind of fear about menstruating and make them believe that as a problem and not as a natural course.  Girls have great fear and are psyched about getting their period and feel weak and fail to perform during these days. We know that there is a steep drop in girls’ education in the age of 12 to 15 due to this.  Can we instill confidence in our girls saying that is a natural process and it won’t affect our body and mind?

Is there any girl who has not become a victim of judgments of others?  People are more judgmental about girls and women right from clothing to hairstyles to skin color to their behaviors.  Everything is seen with a different lens making girls and women weaker each time.  People don’t mind commenting in the open about being fat or skinny, dark or fair, tall or short and so on.   These body shaming remarks and sweeping comments make girls and women more conscious and they develop a feeling of not being enough.   Can we reserve our comments and stop seeing them from the appearance lens and start seeing girls and women from the potential and the ability lens?

Very recently I was conversing with one of my  students, who was engaged and getting married.  Her in-laws were insisting her to take a different career path.  When girls are given education, don’t they have the ability to make a right career choice.  Can we only support them in making a choice but not pushing them to subscribe to our choices?

One of my cousin’s daughter is an expecting mother. She is just 21. She aspires to pursue civil services.  I asked her, “if you are so ambitious about your career you could have waited for some time till you attempted your exams?”. She replied, “settling in life for girls means marriage”.  She is forced to think that ultimately one has to get married and that is the first priority in life.  That’s the reason why we see though girls’ education is on the rise, though the pass percentage outnumbers boys and they being the rank holders, the work force participation of women does not match with the number of women being educated.  Can we make them realize their dreams of becoming something in life?

There are many more instances that make girls and women shrink their thinking.  They still have problems in expressing what they really feel.  The voice never comes out of them when it has to.  However, the problem is not with only others.  The problem lies with girls and women who put their own unseen boundaries. These are self-made limitations.   Girls and women are negatively wired and always perceive greater problems in life. Many times problems are imaginary and not factual.  We need to look forward for a more sensitive society which adds power to the voice of girls and women.  Can we add to their strength for they are the daughters of tomorrow who can build organizations, families, societies, a nation and an entire universe?