International Women's day - Is it a woman's world ?
International Women's day - Is it a woman's world ?
Like the numerous days that are celeberated across the globe, "International Women's day" has also caught on fire. Getting the required boost from the commercial establishments it has become almost a festival. However my attempt here is not to rebuke the celebrations, something that many women do so often , that even that cognizance has become cliched by itself. I am going to write about an interesting angle of all this woman stuff seen from an urban modern man's point of view. What started off as a friendly banter and argument amongst office colleagues - who are male as well as female, on 8th March, led me to think about something intriguing.
There was a time, may be 10/15 years back it was an uncontested fact that ours is a male dominated society. Nobody doubted it, it was etched in our psyche much like the truth that father is the head of the family. There has been a paradigm shift to this mentality, not so much in the modern urban Indian women's minds , as much as in their male counterparts. These new breed of men who are used to the pleasures and pains of a working wife, hold that it is woman's lack of self-trust and inadequate perseverance that stops her from getting to her rightful place than anything else in the whole world. Very interesting isnt it ? Men never find dearth of reasons to attribute to woman's circumstances which are furthest away from their own white laundry, do they :). But having said as much, I can not but take this view as a compliment and in a very positive light. If the modern thinking man is convinced that the all a woman needs is guts to break any shackles what so ever, then it is truly a glorious chapter in the our sociology.
My male collegue very rightly pointed out that when a woman goes back home tired after the whole day's work , along with her husband who is equally tired, it still she who is expected to go into the kitchen by the mother-in-law, another woman. All hell breaks loose if the man decides to venture into this mis-adventure. So it is pointless to celebrate women's day saying "we women have vanquished the men and obtained our righteous place". It is not men you are fighting against, it is other women and so your community is highly fractional.
Yes, it is sad but true that many women are still in the clutches of a patriarchal society. There are many women who truly believe that a women's rightful place , for the better or for the worse, is in the kitchen.Heartingly most of these women are of the earlier generations. Yes, it is also true that many of these women are betrayers of our community and cause. But this is not something new. In any upheaval that had threatened to overthrow strongly established norms, there have been people who have sided with the enemy openly or clandestinely. I am truly ashmaned of these women who in someway or the other act as imepediments to our liberating cause, in the same way that I am ashamed of the Indians that betrayed their country during our freedom struggle. These enemies within, are so consumed by their own selfish and myopic interests that vision is blurred from them. A mother who shows partiality towards her son, a mother-in-law who unfairly expects her daughter-in-law to get into the kitchen when she returns from a work schedule as gruelling and as monetarily rewarding as her own son, a female pimp who lure innocent girls in flesh trade, a successful woman who deter other younger women to reach the same spot as she has, well the list is endless. I would not be far from truth if I conclude that women-subjugation is a mind-set which had spread like cancer, afflicting people from either genders.
The happiest part of the story is ofcourse its last chapter. I do not want to detail out world history here, but there have been heroines and heroes alike who have battled it out for a just cause - that of equal empowerment of women. Because, of their vision, leadership and courage each modern educated woman is what she is today. I thank all of such visionaries from the bottom of my heart. We, men and women together, have to walk the last mile together, because feminism is not just an emotion, it is the result of the conviction of a genderless thinking mind.
Like the numerous days that are celeberated across the globe, "International Women's day" has also caught on fire. Getting the required boost from the commercial establishments it has become almost a festival. However my attempt here is not to rebuke the celebrations, something that many women do so often , that even that cognizance has become cliched by itself. I am going to write about an interesting angle of all this woman stuff seen from an urban modern man's point of view. What started off as a friendly banter and argument amongst office colleagues - who are male as well as female, on 8th March, led me to think about something intriguing.
There was a time, may be 10/15 years back it was an uncontested fact that ours is a male dominated society. Nobody doubted it, it was etched in our psyche much like the truth that father is the head of the family. There has been a paradigm shift to this mentality, not so much in the modern urban Indian women's minds , as much as in their male counterparts. These new breed of men who are used to the pleasures and pains of a working wife, hold that it is woman's lack of self-trust and inadequate perseverance that stops her from getting to her rightful place than anything else in the whole world. Very interesting isnt it ? Men never find dearth of reasons to attribute to woman's circumstances which are furthest away from their own white laundry, do they :). But having said as much, I can not but take this view as a compliment and in a very positive light. If the modern thinking man is convinced that the all a woman needs is guts to break any shackles what so ever, then it is truly a glorious chapter in the our sociology.
My male collegue very rightly pointed out that when a woman goes back home tired after the whole day's work , along with her husband who is equally tired, it still she who is expected to go into the kitchen by the mother-in-law, another woman. All hell breaks loose if the man decides to venture into this mis-adventure. So it is pointless to celebrate women's day saying "we women have vanquished the men and obtained our righteous place". It is not men you are fighting against, it is other women and so your community is highly fractional.
Yes, it is sad but true that many women are still in the clutches of a patriarchal society. There are many women who truly believe that a women's rightful place , for the better or for the worse, is in the kitchen.Heartingly most of these women are of the earlier generations. Yes, it is also true that many of these women are betrayers of our community and cause. But this is not something new. In any upheaval that had threatened to overthrow strongly established norms, there have been people who have sided with the enemy openly or clandestinely. I am truly ashmaned of these women who in someway or the other act as imepediments to our liberating cause, in the same way that I am ashamed of the Indians that betrayed their country during our freedom struggle. These enemies within, are so consumed by their own selfish and myopic interests that vision is blurred from them. A mother who shows partiality towards her son, a mother-in-law who unfairly expects her daughter-in-law to get into the kitchen when she returns from a work schedule as gruelling and as monetarily rewarding as her own son, a female pimp who lure innocent girls in flesh trade, a successful woman who deter other younger women to reach the same spot as she has, well the list is endless. I would not be far from truth if I conclude that women-subjugation is a mind-set which had spread like cancer, afflicting people from either genders.
The happiest part of the story is ofcourse its last chapter. I do not want to detail out world history here, but there have been heroines and heroes alike who have battled it out for a just cause - that of equal empowerment of women. Because, of their vision, leadership and courage each modern educated woman is what she is today. I thank all of such visionaries from the bottom of my heart. We, men and women together, have to walk the last mile together, because feminism is not just an emotion, it is the result of the conviction of a genderless thinking mind.
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