Monday, November 23, 2009

Women Empowerment still a myth ?

This blog is inspired by TN seshan's heart full of burden.it is a book written and published in 1995 and most of the fundamental problems about India discussed in the book decade ago still holds ! Actually in a larger scale.

But one point that caught my attention was that when i came across this phrase " Fifty percent of the Indian population is oppressed suppressed and exploited and that population is called women" .

As i have already mentioned in my other blogs no i am not a feminist as i think asking for equal
rights is like accepting dominance of men.But it is deplorable that the above statement still holds 13 years after the book is published and the problem is more severe now.And actually i don't think it is 50% either now with all the female foeticide happening.I am not talking about the fortunate few like me who constitute just about 3-4 % of the total population but the rest of the mass still living in dark.

The problem in villages is so severe actually ie partly because of the cooperation from women
themselves who think it is a sin to raise voice against their abusive egotist husbands or father , may be it is because of lack of education or sheer ignorance. I remember having read somewhere when i was still in primary that a place where women in the family is literate continues to educate their offspring and the cycle continues but still why is it only kerala and very few states have achieved high women literacy? Why a girl child is considered an additional hand for a mother to help her in household and one to shoulder family's burden but not as a potent future which can conquer the world ? I don't want to pin point any religion , but why certain religion considers women as a mere reproductive machine than as a human being with emotions and dreams?

But when this is a raw problem which is seen mainly in rural India.Is urban India free of all this ? If i think whether women is treated at par in urban so called modern society i don't think so ,here the problem is not because of illiterate women but as far as i think a combination of the following problems :
partly it is because of half literate stupid men who neither end up in a job nor do they have any
ambition but to stand in public places and morally humiliate women by eve teasing,I have hardly travelled in bmtc(bangalore public transport)since my early engineering days but by chance got into one recently and it was then i realized how awkward it is for a lady to travel in bus , i really pity those countless women who commute to work by public transport like bmtc.

But are women in power spared ? I dont think so ,one of the classic examples i can think of in recent times is getting shobha karandalje(minister for rural develpment ) out of power in karnakata , I have never hidden my admiration for bjp like countless others of my generation but i guess i should seriously rethink about section 49-o. In spite of her good work why was she thrown out of the ministry all because of male tyranny ,why did it become such an issue and why all the false rumor spread about her spread just because she is unmarried and considered working for people her sole goal ?? if its just because she was a lady as projected by media , wasn't it a cheap game played ? so even women at power are not spared.what can be more demeaning and immoral in politics ?

Now coming to work area , I am not talking about the high end/sw jobs but at a lower physical jobs why is a women in spite of doing all the hard work men do given a far less pay than men? After all these years if dowry system and those innumerable rape cases still prevails it just shows how terribly our system has failed.

I am sure this blog will be treated as a one sided argument and i don't deny there would be counter argument but is it as huge as the problem women in India are facing ? But when i say
India i am wrong again , its a global problem actually even the so called liberalized US cant boast of a single women president in all these years not to mention how hilary clinton had to step back.Also the reports of physical and mental abuse on women troubles any sane person's mind.

I guess the fundamental problem is in the mindset of the people , as long as a women is treated a mother or wife who is bound to do one's daily chore's this problem will not be stopped ,Though I'm quite sure that my reach through this blog is only to the mass who I'm quite sure respect women, I guess it is only when you treat a women around you as an individual who has her own emotions dreams and a personality, also ego as big as a guy's then there will equality.



4 comments:

  1. Weak are always exploited by the strong in this world. Due to historical reasons women are physically weaker than men and consequently exploited.
    But things are changing and there is a lot of progress on many fronts. When you consider rich and middle class girls, they are in no way disadvantaged. These days they have everything going for them

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  2. "Weak are always exploited by the strong in this world. Due to historical reasons women are physically weaker than men and consequently exploited." u copy pasted this from my gently falls d bakula blog X-( . Reread my blog :P it makes ur 2nd paragraph invalid.

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  3. Power and Freedom are inborn. If any person, need not be specifically a woman, understands that there would neither be a case of "exploitation" nor there will be a need for "empowerment".




    Neo

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  4. I did not copy paste anything.
    That is just a fact!
    When people write books or write articles in the newspaper they have to make it interesting and spicy so that it gets attention. You will not have a person writing that "women are improving, things are good and literacy is great etc etc".
    Women literacy is increasing steadily contrary to what you read in the book and is expected to be 70% by 2011. Also lot of women are entering the work force.

    Also consider the amount of exploitation women do of men by false complaints of dowry, humiliation and the anguish created in men by constant nagging and fighting in homes primarily caused by women to satisfy their own egos :P

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