Women’s Day – A Personal View Point.
From Last Year. And Added. And Added slightly Again. Dinesh K Kapila
I am going absolutely as it comes on this. What do we mean by Women’s
Day. That is stated in the end of this post and was so stated last year. I did post that
this year too but it left me unsettled. Honestly. Tell me, when we look at
women giving interviews to the audio visual media, we are judging their
confidence too. That makes us realise their self confidence and assess the
faith and passion they have in what they espouse. While I do not seek to uphold
all that is sourced from the Western World as correct and worth emulating,
after all there is something called cultural heritage too, but I draw the line
at personifying confidence.
What do you perceive when a woman or lady speaks from the typical western
mindset. She stands up straight and looks at the camera directly or at the
interviewer. The voice comes clear and so does the eye contact. I have spent
time on this over the years requesting and advising women to look at me or t
the camera or whoever it may be and to make eye contact while speaking. The
idea is not to make the uncomfortable but rather that their looking down or
elsewhere and then making a point just won’t do. Even while walking I find many
women looking down partially, why not look into the distance directly. The
women have to evolve and develop the confidence in themselves to demonstrate
their level of confidence.
I agree that the situation is much improved but we are a nation and
society at varying levels of development. Within every social and economic
class or community the degree of empowerment varies and varies deeply. It’s a flux
and this can be a very difficult process as we transition to another level.
From varying levels and cultural contexts. We are all on a journey of
discovering including of ourselves, particularly the women. They perhaps know
what they seek but are held back by the backers of status quo and self styled
norms. Social order, the threat of chaos, mixing up religion with empowerment
are all thrown into the mix of seasoned arguments to oppose the evolution
towards empowerment. This is a fact.
We have the example of some quoting from their religious texts to justify that
empowerment and self confidence are qualities already spoken for and hence so
embedded. They forget it’s typical of the mindset we have in our nation that to
say is to have executed it. Not so. As we are generally not able to execute
projects in terms of timelines etc so is there a wide gap between the thoughts
and ideals espoused in the religious texts which we quote and the process of actual
empowerment. Else our nation would not have required laws on female foetecide.
Minor or rather mini revolutions are occurring across rural and semi urban
India but so are the votaries of stubs quo. The opposition will take time to
move to a broader level of acceptance of the rights of women. Even in urban
India, as urbanisation is a recent phenomenon, the mindset of status quo has
ventured in. This emanates from the entrenched social mindset most have come
from, after all it’s a nation with a huge history in flux. Even one aberration
or incident from one self confident young woman can be latched on to browbeat
the vast majority. I met a Professor. A lady at that. Fully convinced that many
girls going abroad to study were letting their families down. I was dazed to
hear that she actually believed it fully. It took me time to put it through to
her that many were seeking to move on from too many perceived social controls.
Perhaps our political and social leaders need to speak out more openly
and honestly on the need to empower women and to rein in strong patriarchal
mores. This would work more effectively rather than many of us doing our bit as
the acceptability for many of us is limited.
I am very fortunate to have worked over thirty three years in an
institution where I could work first hand on this issue as also observe it closely.
I once met a lady from a deprived rural background at Kangra. She was, way back
in 1999 or so, committed to the concept
of SHGs and realised its value for empowerment. Then we invited her to
Shimla for speaking on the subject, she was at a loss, slowly she gained her
confidence as she shared her personal evolution and growth. A decade later, she
had arrived, truly as she motivated countless women in her area. I have in Ropar
sat with Father Joseph, a Moses like figure, as we let ladies swing away to
Punjabi Songs after sharing how inspite of social restrictions, they were
attempting to push ahead, simple dreams, education, grace, respect and a say in
the family on decisions. Including crucially on financial issues and a wider exposure
to the immediate environment, including the local banks and maybe visits to small
hotels.
There have been disappointments too. Such as entering a Government
School, upto Class XII, where the School
Principal, a lady, was deferring to her husband, who sat in the office only. I
had to shoo him out, bluntly. The Government does its part, but we have to
evolve by understanding we need to change. I just received a call from a medium
level political figure, he invited me to a function. Actually his wife is the
Zila Parishad Chief, but as he put it, the Government may reserve the position
for a lady but I only would run the show from behind the scenes. It sort of
disturbed me, we really need to evolve, I mean hearing this after all these
years again. It’s a slow slow path to moving up. One additional
point, many ladies, teaching, working in Banks even, if I share news such as on
opening a DMAT account, or a new Government avenue for investments, tell me to share it with their husbands. Why should I do
so, they ought to know this aspect too. They may not work on it, but atleast be
aware.
Just by the way we men don’t have it easy too. As ladies evolve and are at
varied levels of empowerment and cultural contexts, we men have to pick up
clues, specially in social settings, as to the cultural norms which are
acceptable. This could be something as simple as to shake hands or greet with a
namaskar ! It can be confusing but that is how any society would evolve.
Seriously, men need new cultural norms and ideals because as women are
empowered and evolve accordingly do, men need to understand the evolution and to
learn on how to conduct themselves with the more empowered women[DKK1] .
Allow me to add a very personal observation too, and don’t mind it too. We can
sort of view that a well groomed self confident lady is truly empowered. No
excuse on time and being busy can justify being dowdy, shabbily dressed and ill
groomed. Don’t dress to please others but first do it for yourself but also be
correct and well groomed about it. Its
no use being ignorant or careless about it, such as wearing a very costly silk sari
but having chipped nail polish or being
in need of a manicure / pedicure.
And being well groomed only adds to the personality. Really. Honestly. (I
will write about us guys separately).
This takes me to -
If we must celebrate a day for women, let us celebrate freedom from
stereotypes, from expectations, from idolisation, from sacrifice...
Stop congratulating women for being the secret behind a successful man... Start
saluting them for being successful!
Stop saying the mother is sacred for all the sacrifices she makes...Try to
reduce those sacrifices!
Stop telling women they are beautiful... Try telling them it's not important to
be beautiful!
Stop praising her roles as mother, wife, daughter, sister...Celebrate her as an
individual, a person, independent of relationships.
Stop justifying her necessity to multi task.... Give her a chance not to!
Stop these constructs which are aimed at making her strive for an impossible
balance... Let her be inadequate and happy!
Stop making her look at herself through a conveniently male viewpoint. Let her
be imperfect, whimsical, irresponsible, boorish, lazy, fierce, opinionated,
loud, flabby, ungroomed, adventurous, unpredictable, unprepared, impractical...
Be bold, be happy, be free, be You!
Happy Women's Day!
And one more -
Women’s Day
Empower Women,
Empower our Nation.
Unleash their potential,
Scale up the nation.
Freedom of choices,
Myriad channels of growth.
Economic Freedom
Absolutely
Political Freedom
Absolutely
Personal Choices Freedom
Absolutely
Educational Freedom
Absolutely
Freedom of Thought
Absolutely.
Self Confidence
Absolutely
Think about it
Absolutely
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👏👏👏💃💃💃
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