Empowerment v/s Individualism
As our country claims of social reforms and an overall renaissance, it has definitely made significant attempts to project a favourable picture of the Indian woman before the world at large; and the tool it has used for it is the different strategies for women empowerment. Our society has always been a patriarchal society where women have suffered oppression, repression and torture at the hands of men. Even if few social reformers and feminist organizations are fighting hard for women’s causes expecting a new dawn for the women of India, ‘Women Empowerment’ in the true sense of the term cannot be achieved overnight. This is because it is must be always borne in mind that India still retains its patriarchal social setup.
But is our concept of Women Empowerment flawed in the first place? Do most of us even understand what it takes to empower our women is more than just the right to education, vote, inherit parental property and choose a career? Aren’t those are birth right, anyways?
Women Empowerment: The right to be regarded as individuals first
When people talk about women empowerment, they probably talk about three major kinds of empowerment; i.e. political, economic and social.
- Political empowerment could be giving women the suffrage right, reservation of special seats in parliament for women candidates so that they can have a dominant voice in the policy-making of the government etc.
- Economic empowerment implies that the woman would have the power to use her resources and earnings in whatever way she likes.
- Social empowerment gives women the power to choose her own career, job, educate herself, to the extent that she can reach her full potential and protest against male oppression, mistreatment and exploitation.
But the well-intentioned and well positioned people of our society who are trying to bestow power upon women often forget these powers were actually their birth rights to begin with; the rights that were snatched away from them by the Chauvinist males in order to corner them in society and deter their progress.
What is very cleverly given the name of Woman Empowerment today is basically returning to women their basic rights. Rather, what is required here is respecting a woman’s individuality which most Indian men often don’t do. In India, patriarchy and domination runs in the blood of the males and no matter how educated they are they, cannot rise over their typical male egos and consider women as an individual worthy of respect, and not someone who should submit to their authority and obey their orders while catering to their whims and fancies.
Women empowerment: Aren’t we asking the men to give us the power?
When there’s so much clamour on women empowerment and so many campaigns are held in its favour, we often forget that we are actually asking men by default to empower us. As mentioned earlier, our society is predominantly a male-dominated society. Our law-making bodies, our governmental sectors too are dominated by males who have a major say in the decision of women empowerment. So it’s
really a sort of disgrace for women that they are begging for their rights from the males!
Despite Gender disparity, Men & Women as human beings are same
Despite all gender wars or all campaigns for establishing gender equality, we need to agree on one point; i.e. as human beings men and women are equal and so it’s very unjust to discriminate between the genders. In doing so, one’s own identity as a human being will become questionable and even dishonoured.
If we truly want to EMPOWER the women of India, we have to first give them the chance to assert their individuality, so that they are confident enough to empower themselves and achieve the goals they set for themselves. It’s not about giving them the right to vote, reserve seats for them or allow them to choose a career; rather, it is about empowering them to be whoever and whatever they want to be.
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