Women and Her Dependency- The Inside Inequalities...

Women and Her Dependency- The Inside Inequalities...

Just few days back, when I was having a discussion on political battle, a person spoke about a quote as "You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the states of its women". While searching I came to know that it was propounded by one our country's PM. मेरे दिमाग में एक ही शब्द आया इस वाक्य के लिए: "Bullshit". नही गोबर कहने से मज़ा नही आ रहा, ठीक जैसे "puppies" cute है, लेकिन "कुत्ते का बच्चा" गाली लगता है या फिर piglets भी cute है, लेकिन "सूअर के बच्चे" गाली लगती है। हाँ तो मैं उस वाक्या के बारे में सोच रहा था की क्या इसका मतलब city में अगर लडकियाँ shorts/minis में होंगी तो वो ग़रीबी है और गाँव की साड़ियों में औरतें बहुत सम्पन्न है? उनका quote न आज लागू होता है न इसके पहले के समय के हिसाब से था। Though we say that India women are represented by lots of goddess, लेकिन वास्तविकता में औरतों को सिर्फ़ एक secondary object तक की value दी जाती है। तभी तो औरतों का "फ़र्ज़" है पुरे घर का खाना बनाना, सबको खिलाने के बाद बचा हुआ खाना, इसके बाद सारे बर्तन धोना। तर्क यह है कि इससे घर में बरक़त होती है और पत्नी अगर पति के जूठा खाए तो आपस में प्यार बनता है। तब तो मैं यह कहूँगा कि हम सबको एक दुसरे का जूठा ही खाना चाहिए, क्यूँकी इससे विश्व में एकता और प्यार बढेगा।ओह, आपका blood-pressure शायद बढ़ गया।

How much we boast of having a great economy but practically women in India suffer from hunger and poverty in higher degree, in comparison to men. India suffers with malnutrition in women, because here women eat last and least throughout their lives, even when they are pregnant and lactating. And this was also highlighted by Mr Amartya Sen. Malnourished women give birth to malnourished children, hence perpetuating the cycle. And this is still continuing because aspirations of women are often suppressed. लड़कियों को पढ़ते हुए यह सोचते है कि अभी पढ़ाई में खर्च करो फिर दहेज़ का सिरदर्द लो। इसलिए पढ़ाई सही से नही हो पाती और फ़िर वो दूसरों पर आश्रित हो जाती है। Women are guaranteed equality under constitution but legal protection has little effect in the face of prevailing patriarchal conditions. Logically, women bear primary responsibility for their family's well-being, yet they are denied access to the resources they need to fulfill their responsibility.

India is one of few countries where males extensively outnumber females and most important fact is that India's maternal mortality rates in rural areas are among the world's highest. As per a study, girls are breast-fed less frequently and for shorter durations in infancy; in childhood and adulthood males are fed first and better. This practice of breast-feeding reflects the strong desire for sons. This nutritional deprivation results for anaemia and malnutrition among women. Both are risk factors and this complicates childbearing which gradually results for maternal and infant deaths. लेकिन चुड़ैल और प्रेत-आत्मा के साये का हवाला देकर उनका इलाज़ करवाया जाता है। एक भेड़चाल यहाँ और भी है। If women are particularly anxious to have a male child, they may deliberately try to become pregnant again as soon as possible after a female is born. और पहली लड़की के लिए दोष भी दिया जा चूका होता है। Conversely, women may consciously seek to avoid another pregnancy after the birth of a male child in order to give maximum attention to the son. क्यूँकी यह हमारी संस्कृति है। The world's formation is because of a woman but she is kept away from all her important necessities. In terms of skill development, women are impeded by their lack of mobility and prejudiced attitude towards women. When women negotiate, they are often ostracized by everybody for being "too forward". Take a reference of any marriage laws and you can see women have been kept as subordinate. Divorce is also shameful only for them and then their rights to inheritance are restricted and frequently violated.

Once Kofi Annan had states, "Gender Equality is more than a goal itself", but sadly this is missing in India. Here people need to understand the education and training for women as this makes them to earn money. As a result, they will spend it in further education and health of their children, as opposed to men, who spend it on drinks or other women. We should accept that with women's rise in economic status, they will achieve greater social presence in the household. As women's economic power grows, it will be easier to overcome the tradition of "son presence" and thus put an end to the evil of dowry. And as son preference declines and acceptance of violence declines, families will be more likely to educate their daughters and age of marriage will rise.

I believe, in this way a synergy of progress can be achieved in our "developing" economy....!

Content: Abhilekh Dwivedi

Objectification of Women

Hello Boys n Men!! Today am "preaching" on objectification of "your" women in "our" today's world. And before writing anything, I just want to say that for me objectification goes much further than Sexy pictures.

कोई भी विज्ञापन या फिर गानों में आप खुद ही देखते कैसे लड़कियों को पेश किया जाता है। "Item", "पटाखा", "माल"... और भी बहुत से ऐसे "उपनाम" हमारी ही "सभ्यता और संस्कृति" की उपज है। कभी "सुराहीदार गर्दन", "नागिन/बादलों से काले बाल", "हिरन की चाल" जैसी खूबियों से स्त्रियों की खूबसूरती को बताया जाता था। अब आज जब तक हर चीज़ में बाज़ारवाद न घुसाया जाये, लोगों को वह पसंद नही आते। इसलिए स्त्रिओं को आज सिर्फ भोग-विलास के लिए दिखाया जाता है क्यूँकी उनको विषय-वस्तु बना दिया गया है। कोई भी विज्ञापन देखिये और उसमे पुरुष और स्त्री के परिधान पर गौर कीजिये फिर आप खुद स्वीकारेंगे। अगर किसी sofa-set के विज्ञापन में आपको एक लड़की छोटे, तंग और कम कपड़ों में नज़र आएगी तो men's deo के लिए भी उन्हें ऐसे ही दिखाया जायेगा।

Now if we refer English Grammar, we have studied that when a subject is Active, then an object is passive. For e.g. "Lucy stroked the cat"; so here subject is Lucy and the object is Cat. But in society, the subject and object statuses are gendered. Men are granted subject status, the vast majority of time and so women are severely objectified. As a result of this, the cumulative effect is that we are socializing generation to view the world, from the point of view of men. On a large scale, it's society that treats women as an object. Just recall any case of male violence or sexual abuse, and you can see that everyone start looking from men's point of view : "oh, he must have been provoked to do that", "he must've been confused by her signals". कोई भी rape cases आप उठा कर देखलो, हर मामले में सिर्फ लड़कियों को दोष दिया जाता है, सिर्फ उनपर ही अंकुश लगाने की बात होती रहती है। Even so called "Gentleman" when speak out on violence against women, tell other men to imagine her as "somebody's wife/mother" but it never comes into their mind that maybe, just maybe, a woman is also "somebody".

In today's time, women are objectified in more profound ways than we realize. Magazines like "Playboy" claims "celebrating women's beauty" but it never post pictures of "Women". What it does in fact is to "celebrate" a portion of the female gender to appeal to male eyes. आप किसी भी मशहुर painter की paintings उठा के देख लीजिये...कोई भी painting जिसमे स्त्री को आधे-नँगे कपड़ों में दिखाया गया होता है, वही अच्छे दामों पर बिकी मिलेगी। तो हो गया न व्यवसायीकरण...! The difference between the way any men and women are portrayed is quite stark in society. Just refer any children's book and you can see that everytime male characters outnumber female ones. This pattern also continues in children's TV shows also where only a third of lead characters are girls. The vast majority of films also tell stories with women as girlfriend/wives/mothers, and women centric movies accounts mere 5-7%. It's a common refrain for men about not understanding women, but this is because they never tried, because that's how society has trained them. It is really an important issue and we really need to look how deeply objectification of women really goes; and at present we must certainly combat this objectification. In coming days, we must entwined shred of the patriarchy for women, so that they could also be recognized and treated as human beings..!

Content: Abhilekh Dwivedi

I am She...! I am The Woman!

I am She..! I am The Woman!

Neither am gonna write any lyric nor endorsing any celeb..but yes one thing I would like to say something about a word "She".... "He" symbolize a manhood whereas "She" a feminism.. but have you ever wondered how a letter "S" which is so soft and tender in look, adds a strength to a mere 2 letter word "He", and thus how a world forms. So, maybe dictionarily "She" is the third person singular, feminine, nominative case of pronoun in modern English, but mind you look at the dynamism. Again in Modern English, "She" not only refers to personified as feminine but also for a city/country...so just understand her strength.. her depth..her contention..!

यूँकी देखने वाली बात यह है कि हमारे देश में देवी पूजा का चलन ज़्यादा है, लेकिन हम अपने देश में नारी जाती का जितना अपमान करते है; उतना तो विदेशों में भी नही होता। हम आज भी दकियानूसी सोच लेकर पैदा होते है और उसी सोच के साथ मुस्कुुराते हुए स्वर्ग सिधार जाते है और वहाँ जाकर अप्सराओं को निहारते है। नही? ऐसा नही है? अच्छा ठीक है, क्यूँकि इसका प्रमाण तो कोई देवी ही दे सकती है...खैर, यह बताइए, अगर आप शादी-शुदा है तो आज आपको याद है कि आपकी पत्नी ने आज कितनी चूड़ियाँ पहनी थी? नही मालूम? अरे आज तो पता कर लेते, आज तो ख़ास दिन है। चलिए कुछ और बात करते है। वैसे आज भी कितना अजीब लगता है न सोच कर कि देश की राजधानी में एक महिला मुख्यमंत्री होने के बावजूद "निर्भया" जैसा हादसा हुआ...।

Frankly, women just want to be treated as equal, but her rise draws nothing more than raised eyebrows. The way this world portrays a women, it makes me believe that we're socially so crippled. Some accuse them as horrible, some say cruel, some label them as sqatters, informal settlers and then they are cursed or mistreated. In short, they have been treated as an isolated object or indirectly beaten for no faults....!

You might not agree with me, but let me tell you a fact which do bothers a lot to all of us. In India, while 82.14% of adult men are educated, only 65.46% of adult women are educated. अब यह मत कहिए कि पुरुष-स्त्री का अनुपात ऐसा है इसलिए ऐसा है। अगर ऐसा कहेंगें तो अनुपात के भी ज़िम्मेवार हम ख़ुद है। Even after provisions of Indian Constitution and UN Charter Human Rights, women are exploited. The generic view of our society that the future of a family is carried on and preserved by "boys-only" has degraded the position of our women. और सबसे बड़ी बात है कि majority of our women lacks in the spirit of rebellion.

We all should learn from Malala Yousafzai, atleast. मलाला ने न तो कोई चुनाव लड़ा न किसी के खिलाफ़ कुछ कहा। उसने सिर्फ़ एक कदम उठाया, एक बदलाव के तरफ़, जिसमे वह सफ़ल हुई। Those who thinks she is just a flash in a pan, then let me shake your blocked-mind. She is from Pakistan, the country which is infamous for everything. She is known for her activism in Pakistan, where the Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. In 2009, she started writing a blog with a pseudonym for the BBC detailing about her life and surrounding under Taliban rule. She rose in prominence by appearing in media and then she was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize by a South African activist. But this is not the only thing....

On Oct 9th, 2012 a gunmen fired 3 shots, one bullet hit the left side of Malala's forehead, traveled under her skin the length of her face and then into her shoulder. Her assassination attempted sparked an outpouring of support for her from all the international boundaries. If you guys read about her, then you could understand how and why she is a role-model for many at such young age. Her rising reminds me few lines from a Poetry "Woman of the Future" where Mr Z Zombie wrote:

"And till the night becomes dawn,
My wings will stretch...
And become hollow and I will be freed...
And because I am free,
the world will become as bright as white to me again"

In India, to truly understand what is women empowerment, there's need of changes in mindset. Not just the women themselves in our society, but men also have to wake up to the world that is moving towards equality. It is better that this should be embraced earlier rather than later, for our own good. Even when Malala, at her 16th b'day on 12 July 2013; when UN dubbed the event as "Malala Day" she spoke so positively and her speech was truly inspiring. She said, "the terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born... I am not against anyone, neither I am here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I'm here to speak up for the right of education for every child. I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all terrorists and extremists." She also stated, "Malala Day is not my day. Today is the day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised their voice for their rights."

चंद लफ़्ज़ों में इतना ही कहना चाहूँगा नारी जाती के सम्मान में:

औरत हूँ मैं, सच्चाई हूँ मैं।
हर पल एक नयी ज़िन्दगी हूँ मैं।।
हर उम्र में तुम्हारे साथ हूँ मैं।
जीती-जागती इस सृष्टि का अस्तित्व हूँ मैं।।

बस इतना समझ लें तो बहत कुछ सुधार आ जाएगा।

Swami Vivekananda once said, "arise, awake and stop not untill the goal is reached". Thus our country should be catapulted into the horizon of empowerment of women and revel in its glory. We have a long way to go, but we will get there someday for sure. We Shall Overcome...!!!



Content: 
Abhilekh Dwivedi