Gawrav Sinha
Imagine if you had to run an extra mile in comparison to the others competing in a race?
Imagine each time you made a move, there was no middle ground—people only viewed it as either blasphemous or an unprecedented achievement.
Imagine every action of yours was gauged as a means to justify your place on a fictional hierarchy.
Now, imagine a world where women didn't have to go through any of these dilemmas.
Happy Just Another Day.
***
Yesterday while writing this article I asked my younger cousin what the best part about being a girl was. She smiled, replying instantaneously, "I don't know, I don't see any difference." Then I asked her if she thought there are differences between men and women. Her answer was reflexive and one I wish everyone could say as proudly as she did, "I told you, I don't see any difference."
Every year, we celebrate Women's Day on 8 March. But each time it seems more like a formality than a genuine appreciation for the women around us.
Are women different from any other gender? Yes, of course they are! If they weren't, then there would be no reason to have a separate term for them. However there is a world of a difference in how my cousin embraces the variations, in comparison countless others who stamp genders in a ranking order that states nothing but regression.
Now let's go into a parallel world and imagine a sphere without the powerful women in your life. Take a minute and think. Ok, stop! Even a second of that thought is scary! I'm certain that isn't a world any of us would like to live in, yet we let others believe that men stand first on a podium where genders supposedly have a hierarchy.
Every year, we celebrate Women's Day on 8 March. But each time it seems more like a formality than a genuine appreciation for the women around us. For those who make us a better person and for those who we want to continue being a better person. Still, it is only on this day that we wake up, sending messages to the women in our lives. Who claims the remaining days?
Now imagine a world where there was just one gender. Sounds unreal right? Well so is dedicating merely 24 hours to a gender that constitutes over 3.5 billion people in this world.
But, why do they get a specific day to celebrate as their own? Aren't birthdays enough? Yeah there's a Men's Day, but no one really makes much of a fuss about that...maybe because it's not so different from the other 364 days.
We celebrate Women's Day with more seriousness, maybe because we know women will be forgotten for the rest of the year. This "act of kindness" is in fact condescending! It's as good as hurting someone deliberately and apologising soon after, only to hurt them again. Doesn't make sense does it? Neither does celebrating a day for women, and then disregarding them later.
Words like choices, freedom, equality shouldn't be privileges but rights gifted at birth. If we can adopt new technologies and fashions, why are we so attached to orthodox thought processes?
We are still engulfed by archaic beliefs and norms. Words like choices, freedom, equality shouldn't be privileges but rights gifted at birth. If we can adopt new technologies and fashions, why are we so attached to orthodox thought processes?
We'll tell a young girl to dress "decently" while finding it perfectly acceptable for a man to walk around with an unbuttoned shirt... we are living in a world that is rife with double standards that serve to deepen the rift between the genders. We still have to make a collective effort as a society to get rid of these stereotypes. And yes, however much of a cliché it may seem, the change starts with YOU.
Let 8 March be the start of an ongoing celebration—of the mother who never loses faith in you even when you do; the sister who proudly calls you her brother and her friend; the friend who protects you while you act like you need to protect her; the girlfriend who makes your knees go weak every time you look at her; the wife who gives you the confidence to turn your dreams into reality; for the daughter who runs freely seeing no differences between men and women.
Till then, Happy Women's Day.