So, the news is immersed in the splendor of ‘women power’ and everything related to them. Reading the newspaper seems unusually less of a drab activity today given the enthusiasm of women, feminists, and well-wishers and their distinctively highlighted words for the day. Yes, it is Women’s Day, recognized to exalt our indomitable spirits! I wish to be warmly included in this celebratory affair but my disinclination to ascribe the necessary attention to women for mere 24-hour hampers me from partaking in the celebration. Just as how naive it would sound to wish a certain friend a long life and all the good luck only on their birthday or run back to our mother’s caressing them with flowery phrases on mother’s day alone, it is as narrow as that to pay attention to some of the imperious issues regarding women for a day. It weighs me down not more than those who scale to a brashly low degree of infamy, fancying the day as an opportunity to advertise and market themselves.
Confining one to life imprisonment isn’t enough if it still leaves a felon like Mukesh Singh guilt-free without any remorse. And while we may criticize the banning of ‘India’s daughter’, in the name of law and order, that very law defangs itself every time a criminal like that is allowed to live in confinement or allowed to go scot-free as in the case of the military rape of Kashmiri women.
The day has become symbolic of feminism and if one really ‘looks’ through discerning eyes, I can’t help but imagine it a day of stark generalization of men as ‘lowly’ or ‘perverts’ or let’s say of a lesser degree than women. The world around seems to be seething with rage and expressing animus with regards to the other ‘unlucky’ gender. My want to acknowledge some very immaculate men, who, I am plumb sure, have never crossed their borders of morality, seems as insignificant as the supposed victory of feminism. I remind myself, rather reluctantly, of how and why it came into being in the first place but with it comes the obnoxious scent of radical feminists who don’t mind lambasting men with stark apathy and raising themselves on a pedestal that seems like a mere figment of their imagination. To ascertain the truth I browse the web and to my surprise, many dislike the whole notion of celebrating women for a day and standing in solidarity with as hollow an idea as feminism. But I am reluctant to completely believe so again because we are a people who need certain ‘days’ to remind us to be kinder to one another, to acknowledge the value of every human life be it man or woman and to reprimand the evil-doers, an imperious need of which exists every day irrespective of the given occasion. And let’s not assume all those who stand up in solidarity with us, are indeed standing up for us alone. There is a storm brewing up on Twitter and while I may acknowledge some famous tweets from equally famous Bollywood stars or other such artists, I cannot evade the possibility of them just trying to appease their vital fandom and gaining our appreciation. Even if that were not the case, it does not whet my appetite to see someone so often brazenly denuded for the sake of money to talk of respect for women. And if film makers support them, let them be, after all, they do make artists simulate rape or other intimate scenes and objectify themselves, all for the sake of education and mere entertainment, ultimately serving the basest feelings of most perverted men and women, both. Amidst all the eccentric support of us there appears a link to ’10 Most inspiring Women’ and the like and I might as well not dig into their lives for inspiration lest I find a controversial issue eluding their portrayed character. An example of a successful woman, in a true sense, must surely be of an unimpeachable personality, which I am still looking for on the web.
Despite some celebrated victories in the field of eradicating violence against women, the UN statistics on the rather still prevalent oppression of women are harrowing. If oppression, as my dictionary defines it, is ‘the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner’, then the tag of an ‘oppressor’ holds good for the French law too for its ‘burqa ban’ and the atrocities being inflicted on its women on their right to wear whatever they want to. But that, of course, does not catch our feminist eyes, let alone headlines. Allow me a further digression. I remember a cartoon of a white ‘supposedly’ empowered woman, tugging at a ‘supposedly’ oppressed woman’s veil and claiming to save her while the poor thing cries a simple ‘no!’ Let’s not discuss the ‘oppression’ of women in the Arabian Peninsula. The media has always had many a hidden agendas, thanks to its fickle-minded audience.
To think of finding a solution to the world’s problems is a bit too far-fetched, there are many problems to chew on in our own territory. Though I remember dowry being banned, my acquaintances still whine over the large amount of money they need to earn to simply give it away to someone as price for their much awaited ‘big day’. I can’t seem to point out illiteracy as the germ of this ignorance (or arrogance?) because they are quite the educated lot. If that were really abolished, as the term asserts, unless defined otherwise, it should be able to make parents equally happy with the birth of a girl-child, as is always the case with that of a boy’s. Yet, time and again, eyebrows are raised at the mention of ‘only daughters’ in a family.
With that said, I still wonder at all this ecstasy with this particular day. No matter the number of protests or campaigns, the injustice inflicted on women will prevail, if the educated remain ignorant, and the ignorant remain uneducated, and the perpetrators keep flouting the law. Confining one to life imprisonment isn’t enough if it still leaves a felon like Mukesh Singh guilt-free without any remorse. And while we may criticize the banning of ‘India’s daughter’, in the name of law and order, that very law defangs itself every time a criminal like that is allowed to live in confinement or allowed to go scot-free as in the case of the military rape of Kashmiri women.
And that for me is a disturbing thought.
