NO COUNTRY FOR WOMEN

WHEN THE HEADS WHIRL

On February 9th ,the box of ces were ornamented with Padman posters and the movie did really well. A lot of people have appreciated the movie and the motive behind it. The movie was based on a true story of India’s “Menstrual Man”, Arunachalam Muruganantham, portrayed by Akshay Kumar. Mr. Muruga- nantham realised that his wife could not afford any disposal sanitary tools, he took the responsibility to develop low cost sanitary pads for unfortunate wom- en. He faced many challenges, from nancial back up to support from the society. He had nally developed a cost effective machine which produced pads. It’s been more than ten years since Arunachalam invented a machine to create low cost sanitary pads and began distributing them to rural women across India.

But unfortunately that’s not for what they really were promoted. Startling in- deed but of course true, a sanitary pad was being promoted through the in- geniously creative *The Padman Challenge*. If you have been cut off from the internet, it was the campaign in which star-studded army of Bollywood peeps were ashing a pose with sanitary pads in their hands. It was all over social me- dia and everyone knew what a pad looked like. For years, our TVs have featured advertisements with girls in white pants, running around during their periods, and being far too happy for our comfort. Nevertheless, the promotion of a humble pad created a huge popularity for Padman as a movie, not much as an idea behind the movie. Wouldn’t it be better if there was a distribution of those same pads to women who are less fortunate? It’s sad how a movie about anoble man has been narrowed down to a pad. And lately, we have seen how a movie omits the big picture (the irony) and makes us feel reduced to so much smaller, a vagina perhaps. But I don’t blame the cinema industry entirely, I blame the society. After all a elm is the refection of the past, present, and the future of a society.

How society understands women, is incorrect! From being suppressed, we have directly jumped to being feared or gloried. No one asked for that. The #Me Too campaign made men squirm at their seats. The objective behind the campaign was to expose the gravity of the number of women who were sexually assaulted or otherwise violated by men. Feminism wasn’t supposed to be solely women empowering. By definition, it’s the equity of the sexes. But when the situation is such where the freedom of choice for women is so restricted then women empowerment is a dire need. At the same time, feminism is a notion that is shamelessly misused by many men and women. The original idea of feminism is the equality of the sexes in all aspects of life. The modern doctrine of feminism has been “reduced” to a mere terminology of ‘empowerment of women’. It’s not even about having men standing up for women, leave chivalry aside. Feminism has been a misconception of being anti-men or man hating. Feminism is simply the uplifting of the socially oppressed gender. At the same time, there is nothing wrong with a woman expressing what she desires, gender specif or otherwise. A woman wouldn’t mind taking a man on a fancy date and pay for the bill, but she would still appreciate if you pull out the chair for her, being a gentleman. Feminism is not to establish gender roles, and neither to create gender threat to one another.

Earlier female fetuses were aborted and baby girls were killed after birth. Unfortunately, in smaller regions it is still a prominent practice. They have been surviving through discrimination, prejudice, violence, and neglect all their lives. This has led to an appallingly skewed sex ratio. Women face threats to life at every stage due to crime, inadequate healthcare, inequality, lack of attention to personal health and well-being. India strongly requires deep-rooted changes in traditional, irrelevant social attitudes for women to be more accepted and secured. There’s a thick layer of patriarchy and widespread misogyny in the country. Politicians have been promising to toughen laws and speed up the prosecution of rapists and perpetrators of crime against women but how? There are members in the parliament who have criminal and rape records themselves.

Lately the reaction to feminism has made us look a little helpless, or some may say high maintenance. There are a few sex-based disadvantages that women suffer in the name of feminism. The intention of forming or continuing a sex classification is to compensate for this disadvantage. The sex classification isn’t particularly based on the archaic or stereotypical notions of gender roles and abilities. The idea is not to create an unnecessary burden, its plain compensation for the disadvantaged sex, the women. You can see this in clubs, the dilemma posed by ladies’ nights, entry fees to clubs etc. No doubt, these offers are appealing but it is merely to compensate for the side effects of discrimination, harassment, and convicts between the sexes. By playing safe there is no solution or even a direction to solve these problems, there is just avoidance. India has been constantly avoiding trouble when it comes to women, which ultimately makes women feel helpless with descending sense of safety.

India has been ranked as the worst G20 country in which women are discriminated the most. What we understand by a safe city or a safe place is where the statistics of reported crimes against women is low, and on top of that they have the freedom to use public spaces as they choose. According to the UN Women website, “A safe city is one where women and girls can enjoy public spaces and public life without fear of being assaulted...one that promotes equal opportunities for men and women in all the spheres of social, economic, cultural and political life.” The risk of encountering violence on account of gender is used to justify the choices women make when living in a city. Safety becomes the ultimate concern for them, and remains even after settling down. Hey man, are you worried about getting on bus with a gang of women who might harass you with a dishwasher ring? The secondary concerns are work, living space, leisure, connectivity. Women carry a constant sense of anxiety where ever they go. And yet in the end, we have to match up for society’s expectations of what parts of the body should or should not be exposed. There are boundaries established for women on their choices to protect themselves.

In our country, a woman is reportedly raped every fifteen minutes. Do the math for the entire year. Along with that there are cases that aren’t even re- ported. Besides that a woman becomes a victim of a crime every two minutes. The statistics of crime against women are increasing everyday by the minute, everywhere. This ongoing issue with violence against women, compensatory feminism in the country, and oblivion towards the thoughts of women; raises a serious question. Is India a country for women? Women have been constantly pushed towards gender specif c roles in their family itself as their “domestic responsibilities”. They are expected to bear children and care for the family alongside their work. They don’t have equal access to autonomy, mobility to outside the home, social freedom that men are privileged with. Women have been considered to be as the key to destruction and hence,weren’t allowed to go out and participate in social activities like men. Still in modern age, women have to face many more problems daily and struggle a lot to establish in their career. Because of such type of inferiority, modern women face problems in their lives. They have to go extra miles than men to prove themselves equivalent to men.

We live in a society where national narrative conditions have made people think that women suppression of any kind has no consequences and violence can be unleashed by an imbalance sex-ratio. Where women have little or no cultural respect, it won’t be surprising if this oppressive atrocity against women in India will get worst. Regressive attitudes towards women are rooted deeply in India’s traditional and conservative culture, in which women embody the ‘izzat’ of a family, and the community whereas men are the honor. The clothes women wear, where they go, what time they return, and with whom is strongly controlled to avoid bringing dishonor and disgrace. Women who believe they should be free to live as they wish,are not monsters. Many are hard-working, de- cent women trying to do the best for their families in very trying circumstances. In a male dominant society as ours women empowerment is necessary. Women have been the subject of honor killing and have been denied basic rights for proper education and freedom. We need to get rid of all the demons in the society to have women attain self-identity on their own.

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