SILENT & STRONG VOICE ABOUT MY SOCIETY: WEALTH OF WOMEN IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF GENDER EQUALITY

When a girl comes out of the mother’s womb, what does she hear?

“You are a girl, you are not like your brother” as she grows she is drilled with this grim reality, that she is from a marginalized section. Why is it that a girl is given less food, and the better food is kept for her brother, father and other elders in the house? In India and in most developing countries’ this is the tradition, and no one stops it.  When a girl is born, her parents don’t think of her education, but they think how she will get married.

 Some girls are even killed at the birth, this is called female infanticide, and on knowing the sex of a child to be a girl, she is aborted.  A girl is considered as of lose conduct if she is out at night, whilst her brother can be out as late as he wants.

 If a girl is to marry, she has to move with her husband to where ever he is, who can’t it be vice-versa? Why is dowry still being practiced behind closed doors even today?

 Even in our text books, when we learn about the family, the book says, “Mummy’s role is to work and cook, while daddy’s role is to work in the office or field, and earn the money.  If at  all this was rephrased to  the fact that both mum and dad, equally contribute to bread-winning, and home making, then our boys  would be awakened with a sense of admiration, and respect for their sisters empowerment and equal rights. This is where gender equality should start, from the home itself, from the school textbooks.

 When we talk about gender equality, we are forgetting about another gender that the creator has made, who is this?

 The Third gender or Transgender.  In countries like India, it is considered a cultural taboo to even utter the word transgender, they are segregated and isolated in every aspect, and we only encounter such persons in the train clapping hands and singing songs to earn a penny or two if they are lucky.  They don’t get proper jobs, they are  looked down upon, as a curse, but in actual fact, they are like this due to no fault of their own, the creator made them, just as others were made, and they too have a right to enjoy the privileges of the world, work, live, and have an opinion of their own.

  If such children are given admission in schools, if they have a role to play in the curriculum, then children will be sensitized at the early age itself, and we would be on the road to eliminate gender discrimination forever.

 To conclude, I would opine that   the wealth of women is EQUALITY, that is:

"We are all human, and irrespective of gender, there should be no taboo, or unjust treatment towards, and if we want to achieve that, then our young ones should be sensitized from birth itself, and the traditions which put a girl or a transgender should be removed, and notions of empowerment should be awakened in their being."

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