‘WOMEN EMPOWERMENT’ has become a cliché and sounds hollow if media reports on the plight of Indian women are anything to go by. Still our Indian women are patient and tolerant; they fight for their due in today’s social and economic milieu. How do we, in India, empower our womenfolk? The irreparable damage we inflicted on our women after independence was to brand them as kitchen and kid managers. They were that for nearly 50 years. By the time the country realised that it made no difference in terms of growth, it was too late and we conveniently coined a phrase to conceal that mistake. The phrase is ‘women empowerment’.
What have we done do empower our women?
We boast of democracy but are we ready to share electoral representation with women?
We talk of equality. How many of our women get to enjoy equality?
When it comes to social changes, we have no parallels; we have come a long way. But where do our women stand in spite of these changes?
We are inundated with opportunities and prospects. Do we share these with our women?
How many Indian women get to move out freely?
Getting married, begetting children and raising them to the satisfaction of all and sundry is no easy task. How many parents would like to have a girl child or educate a girl child, for that matter?
Women are free, we say. Then why they are shackled? Do we let our women say what they have got to say? Have we ever shown the decency to accept that it is women who make the world lively and life worth living?
India is known for its kind and hospitable people. Molesting and raping women, Indian or foreign, in broad daylight, are some of the strange ways in which Indians empower women.
Marriage and money are synonymous in India. The former is the means to the latter; in other words, it amounts to empowering women to be useful.
Our women have come a long way. We have a lot of them holding enviable positions like scientists, astronauts, diplomats, ambassadors, administrators, presidents and prime ministers. While making this hoary remark in the context of women empowerment, we simply ignore one thing - that our nation is more than 100-crore strong.
33 per cent representation for women in the House is a distant dream and the bill is gathering dust.
Provision of equal access to education and the right to deserving positions is easier said than done. Not many women are able to access the right education; nor are they able to claim deserving positions.
Advertisements, films, TV serials, reality shows, tourism centres, marriage markets, workplace, buses, rails and railway stations, lanes, homes, hotels and resorts, parlours and beauty pageants, board-rooms and office cabins, lifts and corridors, political circles, corporate honchos’ meets, etc, pose threat to women. And we empower our women on a daily basis!
On this Women’s Day at least, let us men shed our egos and hypocrisy and realise that there is nothing we need to do to empower women. Rather we let them live life the way we live our lives, viz, to the full. Empowerment is an external activity. What our women need is not empowerment; they need to be allowed to enjoy real power. Are we going to do it? No, I am afraid. He who knows the real power of women would never do it. So it is better to hypocritically brand them powerless or less powerful and keep them empowered ‘periodically’.
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