Keywords: Women Empowerment, Gender Equality, Exploiting Women Rights, Female Education, Women’s Legal Rights, Redefining roles
Everybody talks about Women Empowerment & Gender Equality but how much has it changed the societal mindet, or then it is just a source of discussion among groups. It is very important for us to understand the importance of being Vocal. If we can’t speak for ourselves & our rights then we will never be able to speak for anything neither will anybody else take a stand for us.
If we go back in old times, we witnessed how a girl child was unwelcome, people used to consider a female child as a burden, a liability because they felt that they would have to only spend on her, right from birth till she gets married and after that also would have fulfil all the rituals but in comparison if a boy child was born it would be celebrated as a festival and the male child was considered to be an asset as it was believed that he would carry forward the family legacy.
The daughter was not allowed to go to school & study instead she was expected to learn the house chores and be a domestic help. She had to cook for the family, look after the younger siblings on the cost of sacrificing her childhood but the son was allowed to study, dream of a future life, play with friends, he would be so privileged that he would get everything in hand. The daughter would not be allowed to even express her feelings, choose clothes of her choice whereas a son would have all the liberties & pampering.
I don’t say time has changed, yes we have seen change and the society is much better place now for a girl child but still there are some parts of society who discriminate and exploit women rights. They try to keep the females uneducated or less educated just because they fear that being educated a female might question for her rights. They are given less freedom even today in some families due to which they are ignorant of their legal rights.
It is time to educate women who are ignorant about what is right & what is wrong, what is good & what is bad?? We need to make them understand the importance of self-dependency & if needed wake them up from a deep sleep of ignorance because till this is not done we would have innocent females like Bhanwar Devi & Nirbhaya being gang raped, working females being exploited & sexually harassed at workplace. But it does not stop here some face domestic violence too, we need to make the male counterpart understand that we are not punching bags for them to ease their frustrations & anger.
My concluding, lines would be: We have all been working hard day in & day out. We have proved our capabilities in all fields, be it pandemic or no pandemic, be it for personal goals or professional goals. From the slab of our kitchen to the office desk, from utensils of our home to keyboards on our mobiles & laptops, from self determination to motivating others. We have left nothing untried.
We have always given our best in every field without any expectations. We all have a Kalpana Chawla, Smriti Irani, Kiran Bedi, Sushma Swaraj, Harman Preet Kaur, Mithali Raj, Shivangi Singh, Lata Mangeshkar, Rani Laxmi bhai & Sarojni Devi in us we only need to identify our potentials and empower ourselves. So lets all gather ourselves & come together to not only boost ourselves but also uplift the society as the saying goes….. “when you educate a man you educate an individual but when you educate a woman you educate an entire community”
