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Meaningful empowerment
Celebrating women’s day shouldn’t be about tokenism; we must add meaning to it
Another Women’s Day. Or just another day of a woman finding her place in the world, persistent in her quest for equity as a person and equally committed to each of her gender-determined roleplays. Should the day be celebrated? Cold facts tell us there is nothing to be got from the consumerist gush of discounts for a 24-hour elevation of the woman as a goddess. As the World Economic Forum data predicts, pay parity and the worth of gender equality will easily take another 100 years to be accepted globally. In 2017, women worked virtually free for about 50 odd days given the remunerative disparity existent in organisations. So a movement for equal rights at the workplace and voting, which began in 1908 in New York, coalesced in Germany and Russia and was formally recognised by the UN in 1975, needs to go on to the next level than being reduced to a day-long tokenism. Without diluting the historical import of the day as an acknowledgment of the campaigns that have got women universal suffrage and helped them crack the glass ceiling, March 8 needs to be respected with a renewed pledge to keep correctives on course towards equilibrium.
In the Indian context, the day frankly plays out in the urban space and is mostly espoused by empowered women, who have, truth be told, driven a societal change in mindset and birthed the concept of metrosexual men. They have revised the male gaze from one of the confrontational battle of the sexes to one of conflict resolution. But for all the milestones, social media hashtags and corporate-endorsed events, they overlook the larger picture of actionable talk points. For starters, Indian women need true financial independence which doesn't mean just earning money but the freedom and wherewithal to use and grow it in a pragmatic and sustainable manner. About one in 10 married women still relies on spouses to manage wealth. Widows fare lower and without empowerment or education in rural areas, often get consigned to BPL status. In a country which is for the first time talking about menstrual hygiene and a girl child’s health as a millennium development goal and where LPG is seen as a sought after kitchen gift, the struggle for an able-bodied womanhood has just begun. In a country, where misogynistic taboos and moral codes claim more lives of young women for upholding their choices and where their free will is continuously negotiated with conditioned pressure, a day means nothing. A recent organ donation report has shown that when it comes to protecting productive human capital, the donors are mostly women, particularly in lesser privileged households — wife, mother and mother-in-law. The supposition is that women can be compromised for the sake of a bread-winner male, not because she is of a stronger constitution. This then is an arduous climb, one that demands breakthrough examples every day. The luxury of recall is for another day.
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