While goddesses are revered in our country, women still have a long way to go when it comes to equality and safety. Women have always been perceived as the weaker sex and this paves the way for a group of people to manipulate them.
Whether it be in the case of discrimination or be it the safety of a woman. Every city, town and the village are prejudiced, which is the catalyst to all the evils that befall women. In the urban areas too, where women have the same qualifications (if not more) than men, they are victims of social injustice. Social injustice such as violence, rape and so on.
There are a number of articles about women being burned by the family members because she was not able to conceive a child in the first attempt or the conceived child was a girl. It could be the case where the girl’s parents were not able to fulfil the dowry demands of the groom’s family. Rape is another kind of harassment that women have to be wary of.
If a woman is seen walking on the road after dark, she is either tagged as a prostitute or she is considered not
sanskari. As per the tradition of the society, women are not allowed to be in public after hours. Although the Indian society is leaning towards a more “western” outlook towards life, the ideas of the people in the society still stay the same. A western outlook does not mean wearing the latest fashion and putting on glossy make-up. It means broadening the minds to a higher plane where one is able to put both the male and female gender on the same platform.
There are also instances where infants have been raped by their own uncle or neighbour. An infant who hasn’t even attained puberty! How is that, men can get away with most of these heinous acts, while a prostitute is condemned by the society, who is earning her living by engaging in consensual sex? With all the number of laws and acts being passed to protect the women’s safety, there are still harassments going on in all parts of the country. The above-mentioned instances are those which have been reported. There are perhaps, a higher number of such actions that go unnoticed or unreported which do not come into the public eye. It is still the women who have to suffer.
Cab facilities are considered dangerous after dark as there are multiple instances where the drivers have been reported to misbehave and make sexual advances towards women. For this reason, female cab drivers have been introduced for the radio taxi services. However, the number of such female drivers is minuscule when compared to the whole workforce. But this isn’t the solution for the troubles that women face on a day to day basis. There are instances of harassment in the office for women. Is it fair that women have to take conscious steps and be wary of her surroundings day in and day out? How is it fair that women are not allowed the same level of freedom from their families as the men are allowed?
The female literacy rate in India stands at 65.46% as compared to that of 82.14% for men (reference: Wikipedia). This means that there is a huge gap in the levels of literacy between the male and the female gender. There are still areas in the country where women are not allowed to leave the premises of their homes. They are not allowed to look the men of the family in the eye. This means that even now women are considered the lesser sex. They are meant for managing the household, be at the beck and call of the husband, provide pleasure to her man whenever he feels like and produces children. The families having a girl child is considered unfortunate and the society looks at them with pity. This ideology of the society has been instilled into every person, for which they consider the girl child as a burden to the family. Even in the workforce, women are paid less than men at the same position. A woman might be working better than the man, but the man will always earn more than the woman. We can consider the case of the film industry, where actresses work no less than their male counterparts. However, they are still paid less than the actors are.
There have been awareness programmes, movies, documentaries, laws, acts, etc. that have failed to help the womenfolk from all the social atrocities that they have been facing for such a long time. It was only after the Nirbhaya case, that laws and acts were passed regarding rape. But there have been countless instances where brutal rape cases have not been reported because the victim’s family would have to live in shame in the society. There have also been cases where a young girl child has been molested by some family member, but the young child being too afraid to talk about it kept quiet, or wasn’t aware of what was going on. There are also instances where the mother or father tries to stifle the child from talking about all such actions that may have happened to them. The society makes is shameful for any parent to have a child who might have gone through the horrible experience of molestation or rape.
It is the men in the country who need to understand that women are not mere objects to leer at or push around. The society needs to maintain a higher opinion about women and perhaps, the perception of the society might trickle down to the minds of the people. Only then, there is a slight hope that women would be spared from all these obstacles in life and be concerned about things that could help uplift the society. Only then, is it possible for the society to grow and develop positively; because it is the mothers who are the first teachers of the new minds.
0 comments:
Post a Comment