Respect Women – You Owe Your Existence to Them

International Women Day, celebrated on 8^th March every year, is a small gesture towards recognition and appreciation for the sacred and highly significant role that women play in our life and the society. We all owe our existence to them.

Recalling the famous book by American author John Gray i.e. ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’ wherein he has compared fundamental psychological differences between the genders, we all need to understand and respect our women..Women are the perfect and best creation of God. Human existence and life is incomplete without women. They are the creators in themselves. Our ancient culture has always regarded and accorded highest status to our women terming them as goddesses. A woman is considered to be “Graha Laxmi’. A girl child is considered to be incarnation of Goddess “Durga”. God has blessed women with extraordinary senses, power and abilities. A woman can bear all sorts of pressures and pains and can still stand firm irrespective of all odd circumstances. No man in the world can take the pressure of undertaking the tasks completed by women silently without complaint on daily basis. A woman feels satisfied serving and fulfilling her family wishes. Women, today, share equal responsibility even to earn livelihood for family in addition to fulfilling household duties. A man on the other hand feels great by simply being the earning member of the family. Very few men contribute in household work even today.

Women are shouldering equal responsibilities like men world over. There are many instances when they have left behind even their male counterparts. Women have governed the countries effectively and have reached even to the space. Belonging to Indian origin, Ms. Sunita Williams, current NASA astronaut has established the world record of spending longest period in space. Indira Nooyi, CEO –PepsiCo is another example of women reaching to highest position even in corporate world. Late Mrs. Indira Gandhi was most dynamic Prime Minister India has ever witnessed. Today, our External Affairs Minister is a woman. Our women are no lesser to men in any discipline.

Human race owes their existence and development to women who play most crucial role in human development. They are present in different roles in a man’s life and make him feel complete. Unfortunately, centuries old patriarchal system is still prevalent in Indian society and above all in the mindset of people. It has always discriminated against women. Not only men, most of the women also accept it as truth and their fate as since their childhood they are taught and fed that male is superior to female in the society. In most of the countries including India, a girl child is never accorded same privileges and facilities those extended to a male child. Girls’ freedom is curbed at all stages. They are continuously fed by their mothers and elders in the family that they are meant to do home tasks and to extend family line. They should not go outside alone at odd hours. Their dress code is also decided by the family. Their education, health and other socio-economical developments is still not given as importance as to the male children even in educated families in majority of the cases. Although, there are some visible changes in educated families mindset especially in urban places, but they are just superficial.

In reality women face all sorts of curbs and discrimination on their freedom to express themselves be it their life style, or their education or choosing their career or free movement. After years of agitations and many movements, women in some parts of the world got some equal rights as that of men but that too is not universal. There are still many places and countries and cultures where women are discriminated against. Countries where internal conflicts are going on use women as commodity and sex slave.

Recalling the most unfortunate “Nirbhaya” case, or recent case happened in Rohtak District of Haryana, and countless such cases those we read in newspapers or see in the TV news on daily basis are live examples of how a woman is still considered as an ‘object’ in society. Even the little girls are not spared. Not only the strangers but on many instances close family members have done atrocities with females. The controversial documentary film made by BBC reporter wherein a convict in “Nirbhaya” murder case proudly said that the girl had to quietly surrender to their wishes rather than protest and fight for her survival is the eye-opening remark about the mind set of people towards the woman. Not only this, honor killing of girls who falls in love or choose a life partner against their parent wishes is very frequent and another example that girls have no choice of their own in society. Similarly, acid attacks on girls refusing the advances of men are also wide spread in society. Girls are supposed to adhere to ethical codes decided by their father or brothers or other male relatives in their parental home and in their in-laws place, they are supposed to obey and follow all instructions of their husbands.

Everything is not pessimistic though. There is a visible change in the society albeit at small level. Young and educated generation, our youth at least in cities are coming up and fighting for women. Many efforts have been taken up at Indian Government level also for the safety of women and to empower them. Just couple of days back, Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) issued a guideline making it compulsory at least one woman among the Board of Directors of a company. Police is instructed by the government to help women in distress. Government has set up “Nirbhaya” fund with corpus of ten billion rupees to support initiatives by the government and NGOs working towards protecting the dignity and ensuring safety of women in India.

With policies in place and scope of further improvement also in policies, it is essential for the society to change its mindset towards women. We have to collectively take responsibility imparting our young boys lessons right from childhood about respecting women and give them their dues. Every member of society needs to share the responsibility of helping a woman in need irrespective of danger involved. Whole society has to accept and treat women and girls equal and at par with men and boys. Unless this value system is wide spread in our society, it is difficult to save our women from predators, who are freely roaming in the society. Girls are also needed to teach self defence mechanism as a compulsory measure. This is currently happening at small level at some places. Simultaneously, government and judiciary will have to evolve a system where quick and fast justice could be ensured to any victim of gender violation.

It is high time that we all make our country a safe and comfortable living place for our women and provide them an environment that ensures their growth and development without any discrimination. They get freedom to choose their own lifestyle, career and life partner. They get equal share in parental property. There is urgent need to ensure that girls can also move freely like boys at any time without fear of not ever returning back. We must never forget women are the one who have given us this life, nurtured us sacrificing their own comforts and dedicated their full life for our well being. It is our earnest duty that we respect them and pay them back their legitimate dues by recognizing and respecting their coexistence.

Jitender Sharma

Librarian

Jaipuria Institute of Management, Noida

E-mail: jitender.sharma@jaipuria.ac.in

Mobile: 09899695953