On Women's Day

Can an unmarried woman have her own child with social acceptance? Supreme Court of India says that to raise a child, women do not need to mention child’s father’s name anywhere, and no system makes it mandatory to write father’s name on any paper whatsoever. But the question is are Indian women ready to accept such challenges and live their life with respect in society? This is not about the equality with men; this is about rights of women.

Now a day, we talk a lot about feminism and empowerment of women, however most of the time we compare men and women ability to judge who is better. I think we must not compare them; we should talk about their empowerment and rights. When two men cannot be equal, two women cannot be equal, then how a man and a woman can be.

There is no question that condition of women is being better. In 21^st century, they are participating in fields where they were not supposed to be. Now we can come across many names in sports, politics, business, film industry and in other fields too. However, major part of women population is living as housewife and most of them are not financially independent. Financial independence is integral part of women emancipation.

In many countries women are driving bus, but in India women are afraid to travel in bus. Few women are coming forward and breaking the gender barriers by adopting driving as their career. However we have to go a long way to have a safe society for women where they can live with respect and dignity.

On this women’s day, we should also heed on psychological independence which is rooted culturally into girls mind. We should think why most of the girls look for a rich guy for marriage, while most of the boys don’t. Because women feel secure with rich guy, of course they should. They feel secure because of the cultural conditioning. Sisters and brothers celebrate festival of Rakshabandhan in which brothers swear to help their sisters in ups and downs of life, and they are considered as a protector of their sisters. This breeds an unintentional culture into girls that they are secure when someone better than them is present in her life to provide them security.

Same thing is applicable to marriage. Girls are being educated to treat her husband as God and protector. A girl from childhood observes that her father is the whole sole earner in the house and other ladies are just home maker, they grew up with this mind set to have such a husband who can give them financial and physical security.

There is nothing wrong in this, however once they are financially independent why still they are looking for such security. They must break such conditioning to be totally free from patriarchy to live a life of freedom. If you are dependent on someone for whatever reason, sooner or later you are going to pay for it. Your relationship should be based on understanding, not on need.

Many women those who have good career and considered as independent women in society are still confined in their psychological limitations. They can speak in public but they can’t speak at home in front of their in-laws and husband. They don’t have much interference in family decisions. Even some of them are having good living standard but they don’t have much freedom to speak.

Women should not make this as a war and understand what extent they should go to achieve their rights. Few years ago, a DU girl makes a statement on social media regarding wearing clothes that “Even if I walk naked no one has right to stare at me”. Yes, everyone is free to wear whatever they want to; however don’t we think that we should not go to such intense and make such comments.

Women’s empowerment is not only in being a icon, leader, film star or sport celebrity, but also when she drives car and her husband sits beside her, when no one demands dowry in marriage, when male employee does not feel inferior reporting a female manager, when female foeticide ends absolutely, when domestic violence against women stops completely, when gender ratio equalizes in each state, and these things cannot be achieved only by women, men should come forward and support them to make it possible. 

This is the era of changes, especially for women, and they should handle this change with delicacy and understanding. They will have to go through struggle for their rights in society, home and in personal life. Family, friends, office colleagues are their society and only these people are going to insist them to follow something or not to follow something, however always listen to your inner voice what to do for your good future and life.