Women’s Empowerment
All too often one sees that the Subcontinent has failed to protect the rights and status of women. Nothing could be more disastrous for a healthy society.
A man who misbehaves with women, with his wife, with the other women in the family, women employees, is basically a hollow man rotten to the core. He has failed to understand the healthy dynamic that should exist between a man and a woman. Only a confident man can ‘manage’ a confident woman. Once one starts treating women contemptuously, it is a sure sign that one has no confidence to speak of. Only the cowards bully the weak and the meak.
God has endowed women with the miraculous gift of birthing a child, and the procreation of mankind is a responsibility they bear to a large extent. But the question whether the woman wants to fulfill that responsibility provided circumstances allow her, is an issue between her and the One who charged her with the responsibility - God. Nobody else gets to veto this personal decision making. The woman’s body is her own. It is for the woman to decide with whom she wants to bear her children, when she wants to bear children and how many children she wants to bear. Others can express their desires but she takes those decisions.
It is also important, that man does not impose his will on a woman’s body against her will. Women and their bodies endowed with the gift of procreation, of pregnancy, deserve to be treated with respect. Any violation of the bounds and limits set by a woman on her body and modesty is a violation of the highest order.
It is one thing for a man to bind, to tie his honor to the women around him, in his mother, aunts, cousin sisters, sisters, daughters, wife or even girlfriend. It is his decision to make his honor captive to the behavior and decisions of the women, but the women are not captive to his honor. Should a man feel hurt in his honor, purportedly due the behavior of the women, he is free to make decisions on what his stance to the women shall be, but he has no authority to intimidate, threaten, bully or physically hurt the women, nor is he allowed to retract from legal obligations he may have towards these women.
Another social evil one often comes across is when men consider women to be their property. Nothing can be more sickening to see a society so degenerate where a human being can be considered the property of someone else be it through slavery or through marriage, which instead of capturing the spirit of a union between a man and a woman, ends up being akin to slavery.
All crimes against women need to be always investigated and if found guilty, the culprits need to be given severe punishments. Moreover the education imparting proper respectful treatment of women, should start in the family and school.
Women gift mankind with progeny, however treating a woman as simply a baby producing facility would do grave injustice to her potential as a human being. Women need to be given just as much space in the society to realize their dreams as any man. It should be considered inappropriate to ever want to tie down a woman, only as a housekeeper, as a baby factory & caretaker, or as a sex toy. Just as men, women too have the impulse to contribute to society through productivity, services, creativity, through their ideas and industriousness. They too want to explore and experience the workplace outside her home. This impulse cannot be chained. In fact society should encourage such contribution and benefit from it.
Jugglling children and career is a challenge every working mother knows and career women contemplate. Considering the fact, that society needs both new children being born and women tending to their careers, it is imperative that state supports such women with laws which protect their rights in the workplace, which enables them to take parental leave, etc. Here there is a need to support both women and employers, so that employers do not discriminate against women when giving jobs.
The healthy respect of the woman is essential for the development of a healthy society. If boys learn “repression” of others while still young by exercising it on their sisters and mothers, then they will look upon bullying as a legitimate tool of life, and those who go for bullying are often unwilling to invest time and energy in learning and working. Furthermore in a marriage market where the women are educated and sometimes highly qualified, the men would have to also excel in order to show themselves as desirable and as prospective candidates for friendship or marriage. Much more would be expected of men also, which will enable the society to excel as well. Besides the emotional aspects of marriage, one would be bringing in meritocracy as well into the equation instead of mediocrity as was the case till now.
The education of the girl child should as such be made an opportunity in the society. In conservative areas, one can entice parents to send their daughters to school by offering them girls only schools. In poorer areas, one can additionally offer free rations to the parents for sending their daughters to school. However the general preference should be for co-education schools, because then boys and girls get used to the presence of the other gender at a very early age and do not develop psychological complexes when dealing with the other gender. They also learn at an early age how to treat the other gender respectfully.
Pan-Subcontinentalists see a marriage as a partnership of equals, where each comes to the help of the other, where decisions are taken together and where one treats the other with respect. A Pan-Subcontinentalist would also never show favoritism to his son(s) over his daughter(s) on the basis of gender. A Pan-Subcontinentalist, if a man, would treat all women with respect and dignity. If and when, a Pan-Subcontinentalist sees some crime being committed against women, he will show moral courage and try to stop the crime. The Pan-Subcontinentalist would try to educate society to treat its women with dignity. At the workplace, a Pan-Subcontinentalist will not discriminate others based on their gender.
So educated and empowered women are essential for a thriving society in the Subcontinent.
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