The International Women’s Day was celebrated on 8th March. The morning news paper reminded it to me. No celebration at home. My mother is busy doing her regular chores as usual. I wondered then this day is for whom? I thought of making a quick survey. I sent text messages to some 30 women in my contact list saying “Happy women’s day. Let women be more powerful”. I got only 3 replies! I wondered! What about others!? Aren’t they celebrating Women’s Day? Don’t they think that celebrating women’s day is necessary!? Or is it that they have no meaning to it since the celebration of women’s day never changes their lot. In fact, all the women whom I had sent messages are well educated. Still, there is no cheer in celebrating women’s day! Then what is the status with uneducated, illiterate women in our society?
It is correctly said that “if you
educate a woman it is like making the whole family educated!” In fact, some results have shown
that education of women has improved their health conditions, has improved
their child care practices, it has improved their social mingling. The concept
of Self Help Group has worked wonderfully and one of the best examples is SEWA
(Self Employed Women’s Association). We do see many women working in different
fields, some of which were traditionally male dominated!
But
the question remains that “whether education has changed the attitude of men
towards women!?” The results seem to be dismal. The treatment of women in
households has not really changed. The culinary works still remain the domain
of women in the houses. Even in nuclear families where both husband and wife
are working, women have to do domestic works and then have to go for office.
Husbands still continue to pick up the newspaper in the morning and sit on a
chair waiting for tea to arrive to their place. Sipping of tea and reading of
newspaper goes on till it is the time to get ready to go for office! By then
breakfast is expected. The shoes should be polished and they do not know where
is their pant or shirt, leave alone belt, socks, watch and purse! The laptop
should be kept inside the bag and tiffin should be ready (if lunch is not
available in the office)! If these things are not done properly, these husbands
start grumbling for the inefficiency of their wives to get the things done on
time! The blame will be again on their wives if they miss the bus or if they
get jammed in the traffic. There is no consideration at all for their wives who
also have to get ready to go for office! On returning home in the evening, a
cup of tea is expected to be ready! If wife is late to return from the office,
she will have to see the kitchen in a bad shape where so many vessels being
misplaced, unlided sugar and tea powder bottles, milk in the vessel kept open,
some biscuit packets opened and kept here and there and some powder on the
floor with no hint from where it fell! Generally she doesn’t dare to question
this adventurous act. If she does, then the ready counter is “I didn’t find the
vessel to prepare tea. I had to search so much to get it. Why don’t you keep it
in some place where it is easily available!” She will think it would be wise to
keep quiet as these arguments are never ending!
The
most expected thing from women still remains “the ability to cook”. Many
educated men do consider it as one of the ‘most important’ thing to be asked
while choosing a bride for them! I wonder how cooking has become so important criteria
undermining educational qualification, work profile and so on, even though they
are well educated!
Glass
ceiling effect is not a new phenomenon. Very few women have been able to break
the glass! Recently Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund,
told the assembled global elite at World Economic Forum that she had been
opposed to quotas until a moment early in her career when she was told she
would not progress because she was a woman. “I soon realised that unless we had
targets, if not quotas, there was no way” to make headway, she said. This is a
clear sign of educated men still considering women to be less capable of doing
things!
It
has become very common to see reports of rape incidents in newspapers. Many of
us have become more desensitized to such reports. If we analyse these reports,
it is quite prevalent to see that many of the rapes are by intimate partners! We
get to see many well educated men who are in very good posts involved in such
cases.
Right
from Supreme court judges to journalists, professors, doctors have been alleged
of sexual assault! Uneducated, illiterate men add to these numbers! That means education has failed to bring
attitudinal change in men. The overpowering nature of men still continues even
though the structure of society is changing!
Unless there is
attitudinal change, real women empowerment will not happen even if successive
governments bring more and more legislations!
