On International Women’s Day that falls on March 8 every year, women usually all over the world are honoured for their ability to multi-task or for attempting to stand parallel with the men in earning as well as in social life ‘after’ handling their household work very efficiently and with patience. But the sad part to highlight here remains the same viz their fight for equality and their demand for equity!
As we observe cultural, political, and socioeconomic women-made achievements in various fields today, the day also serves as a clarion call for a society that should be free of gender bias, stereotypes, and discrimination and would value diversity, equity, and inclusion instead.
Women have been demanding equality for decades now and this year the theme for International Women’s day is ‘Embrace Equity’, which goes a step further and refers to offering varying levels of support depending upon the need to achieve greater fairness of outcomes. “Equity isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have. Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome,” notes the International Women’s website.
While women have been demanding equity and equality worldwide for years now, things aren’t different in India where the system of relationships, beliefs, and values embedded in political, social, and economic systems between men and women is patriarchal. It structures gender inequality. It allows men to be in positions of power and prestige, however successful the women are.
Equal opportunities but unequal treatment
Men and women, to say in India these days, are offered equal job opportunities, but men are valued and assigned crucial assignments, they are paid more, their opinions are valued more, and they enjoy more privileges because of their sex. Women, on the other hand, are often undervalued in every sense above mentioned and are also ‘characterized’ if at all they get a promotion at the work.
While women are often asked their marriage and children plan at the time of hiring, men are never asked such. Over and above this being discriminatory and gross invasion of privacy, it also show underlying patriarchal mindset that women, of marriageable or childbearing age, may not be around for a few months, years should they choose to have a child and hence are deprived of projects which could enhance their careers.
Their story is no different at home. In fact, the ones who chose not to work at the offices are made to face the inequality at larger sects. They are not valued, their views, and opinions are not considered and they are looked at only from the specs of working burden. Yes, this still happens in India and as an Indian, I feel ashamed of this injustice happening to women around.
Why raise our daughters and sons differently?
We have progressed, but society still holds different morals and values for men and women. The way gender is structured currently constitutes a serious injustice. When we envision a better society where men and women are treated equally, we must raise our girls and sons equally.
We do a disservice to our sons by instilling in them a dread of vulnerability and fear. We instruct them to hide their actual selves because they must ‘be a man’. That they must not cry or appear vulnerable or show emotions – as they are for the ‘girls’.
Further, we do a much greater disservice to women by raising them to cater to the fragile egos of men. We instruct girls on how to limit themselves and just remain smaller in respect. We advise them to not have extremely great ambitions. “You can have ambition but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful. Otherwise, you’ll threaten the man”, we still teach. How these lessons are ever going to bring about the change and cater to the demands of equity put forth by women today?
Society still looks down upon man if his wife is the primary breadwinner. We have been conditioned such that men are providers and women are nurturers. That for women to have personal ambitions, career aspirations is looked down upon as ‘being selfish’ but men having same is ‘he has to’. Till we normalise for women being ambitious and not pull her down by making it her sole responsibility to ‘hold the family together’, we will take much longer to achieve the equity.
Over years, times have changed
Things in big cities might have changed and I can’t totally deny the progression. But when it comes to smaller regions, things haven’t changed really. If a woman here is the family’s breadwinner, she is asked to act otherwise, especially in public. She is advised to pretend to safeguard her husband’s ‘dignity’ and to protect her marriage. Why should a man feel threatened by a woman’s success? And why only she is asked to believe that marriage is the most important thing that she needs to prioritize in this world? Marriages are beautiful indeed. But why not teach men also to aspire to marriage and prioritize it?
It’s easy for society to say that ‘Oh but women are more likely to accept their less respect in marriage.’ Yet the truth is just more challenging and intricate. I believe that in India, the terminology of marriage frequently reflects ownership rather than partnership.
We use the word “respect” to refer to the behaviour that women are expected to exhibit towards males; the opposite never happens. In India, both men and women have been known to claim, “I did it for the peace in my marriage,” at various points. Nonetheless, the context in which they both utilize this expression differs greatly. When a man says ‘he did something for peace in his marriage’, he generally talks about giving up smoking, drinking, etc. Yet when a woman claims to have taken action to bring about marital harmony, she typically refers to quitting her job—her passion.
I know a woman who clearly hates housework but pretends to like it since she was trained to be a good housewife. The issue with gender in India is that it places more emphasis on how we should be than how we actually are. Imagine how liberating, joyful, and easy it would be to be free from the burden of gender expectations!
There is no denying the differences between boys and girls, but socialization tends to emphasize the difference. Take cooking for instance. Today women in general are more likely to do the housework than men, the cooking and cleaning stuff. But I’ve hardly seen this happening the other way around. Is the ability to cook a gene given to women? Indeed, I had begun to believe that yes, perhaps women are born with a cooking gene until I realized that the majority of the great cooks in the world are males, whom we respectfully refer to as “the chefs”. And more than anything, cooking is a survival skill. Men and women both must know how to cook, maybe not elaborate fancy meals but basic meals to make sure they can cook for themselves at least.
Today there are more opportunities available to women as compared to 60 years ago. But what affects even today is the society’s attitude and mindset towards women and the issue of gender inequality. Gender inequality is I suppose a very uncomfortable topic to have a conversation on because it no longer continues to be a conversation. People start debating leading to no conclusions.
Men and women are different. Let’s not deny that. But it’s time to adopt whatever is good for society and moreover, whatever is fairer to both men and women! Society needs to value equality and embrace equity till we have things in our hands. I am sure none of us wants our coming generations to keep debating on gender equality and equity.
Happy Women’s Day!
