Over the past year or so, India has witnessed one of its biggest media turnovers, with topics that have always been hushed up, thrown out into the open for people to scrutinize and comment upon and hopefully learn their mistakes from. The word ‘Women Empowerment’ has been thrown around like candy of late and people seem to think that by just knowing in theory, the ways of treating a woman that they’re set for life. Maybe, if someone came up with a book titled “How to Treat Women” and made it compulsory for schools to incorporate it into their syllabuses, then we’d have certain changes that would ACTUALLY take place in this country.
But then again, maybe not.
Everyone who has a mouth and a mind of their own will tell you how all of India’s problems would be solved if only everyone in the country were educated. What these people fail to realize, is that many, if not all, of this country’s problems take place in educated families – maybe even their own. Now maybe they aren’t doing this consciously; maybe it’s just what they’ve been brought up listening to, that plays a part in their subconscious mind, but the fact is that there probably are only 10% of families that can actually, honestly, completely accept that they do not differentiate between sexes.
In most modern, urban families, it’s very hard to tell whether they really do discriminate or not, because they themselves aren’t doing it consciously. The differences are very slight, but they most certainly are present. In families where parents have sons as well as daughters some of the differences seen are such – when small, both children may be sent out to play some sport. But as the days go by, one will inevitably notice the girl being kept back home while the boy is still allowed out to play. The excuses may be a great number, but at the end of the day facts are facts.
Another such example is housework. People say that as the “lady of the house” you’re expected to know your duties. A girl “needs” to know how to cook, clean and wash because ‘there won’t always be someone to do it for you, especially when you go to college’; what I would like explained is this – don’t human beings in general have to stay alone at some point or the other in their lives? If so, don’t boys eed to have the same training? Both sexes have the same number of hands and legs, so how does it become the girl’s duty alone to be able to accomplish household tasks?
Women have reached new levels today. They’re CEO’s, politicians, law makers. In short, women do everything that was earlier considered a man’s job. They have earned their own identities. Tradition though, still says that a woman is expected to take up her husband’s last name irrespective of the situation. Just to serve male ego, women give up, and most of the times, are forced to give up the name they’ve built their lives around.
Discrimination has never been just a word, it’s always been harsh reality for a staggering number of women. People can go around banging a lot of tables trying to prove how neutral minded they are, but the fact is that they still think that it is solely a woman’s job to take care of her house and family at the end of the day. There isn’t really a scientific solution as to how one gets rid of such problems. It is only when the people of this country truly begin to realize that we’re all humans, one and the same, that this country will be rid of at least this one evil.
