GENDER EQUALITY FOR PROSPERITY.

A TRIBUTE TO WOMENHOOD DURING INTERNATIONAL WOMENS MONTH,MARCH

March 2009 has been declared as international month for women and in this occasion I wanted to convey my thoughts on the subject, a few examples of our apathy towards our own women folks. Especially in the backdrop of Taliban denying women educaton.

Men have been more selfish and brutal throughout the history of mankind. To prove my point home, here are some tips I learned from Grameen Foundation sites.
Women own only 1% of the total wealth or our world’s total assets. They work day and night completing 2/3 of the world’s working hours, for which they earn only a meager 10% of world’s income. These are the uncomfortable truths to prove, how we have been treating our women who are mothers, wives, sisters and daughters.

Apart from these hard facts are the other negative sides of our society torturing them for all the problems faced by us? Firstly a man can have any number of mistresses which is considered macho while, if a women on the other side will be blamed if ever, she looks at anyone else other than her husband. Due to the physical strength men can torture and suppress the women even when she is right. If the husband is a drunkard then the torment a woman goes through is horrible and depressing. What is the use of claims of civilization, if we are seen not fair to our own fairer sex? Hinduism with claims of the most civilized and cultural heritage also did treat women most unforgiving and without any reasoning, and among cruel acts was the fact of ‘SATI’ [Past practice of wives ending their life when husband dies by jumping in to the funeral pyre], had it not been for the British, we still would have been continuing with such cruel and saddest ending of life, as per existing laws worst criminal act, which punishes a women only because she was born as a women.

Women folks were subject to worst living conditions irrespective of the religion, country or race. The standard of living has never improved for women even after centuries and the above statistics being the latest, we can very well imagine what preceded the present scenario which itself is grossly unfair. Men is ego personified and don’t seem to be making things improve, unless we put in place strict laws of equality in all spheres. Even then it may take generations to correct the injustices and irregularities if you are women.

I hope and pray for the well being of our women folks, the greatest contributors when it comes to family and bringing up children, cooking food, cleaning house, utensils, washing and all other never ending day to day chorus. On top of it all, if the guy is a drunkard then she has only god to help her from all the bodily harm and torture she has to go through all her life. As a husband and father I have always felt guilty, when I notice my wife getting up early morning at 5AM to start cooking for breakfast and lunch before, waking us up with steaming hot tea followed by breakfast, immediately afterwards she has to rush to her work, as she too is employed and contributes meaningfully towards the monthly bills to be paid. Though, we take these entire choruses for granted from the women of the house we seldom thinks of the enormous workload of wives in comparison to that of men in spite of the strength and physic, where women are soft and nice in comparison to men who are raw and rough.

I have no shame in admitting that we are thankless and biased, it is high time that there are laws enough to protect and preserve our women. I am with the women of the world in their fight for their well deserving rights towards equality and better treatment and strongly advocate for strict laws. Though people don’t realize, the fact remains in India, we have been ignoring female infanticide and the reducing ratio of women against men.

Those who abort girl child are the ones who will definitely suffer in their old age as daughters takes good care of their aged parents, while their son will most probably go out with his wife ignoring their parents, seen very commonly at present. People during their old age are seen more comfortable with their daughters than their daughter in laws.

The time is for drastic steps or humanity will perish. My demand is to make all laws governing us to be made in to equal ratio, be it for education, employment or even politics. Women are more sensitive towards life and we can expect better justice from a woman than a man. I for one would be the happiest man, if Sonia Gandhi or any other deserving women is made our prime minister. My vote is for the women of the world.

Thoughts of balakrishnan mechakkat for more visit ‘solitairebala’ in Google.