Every year on International Women’s Day, I
am faced with a dilemma – to celebrate the day or to not. It was easy when the
decision was not on me as when I was working in a company. The celebrations
carried on whether I liked or not. People wished me on the day and I only had
to thank them politely or else in the case of loved ones, retort that we women don’t
need a special day to celebrate. No thanks. We shall celebrate our womanhood on
all days. Just like people feel it necessary to point out unnecessary celebrations
for Valentine’s or Mother’s day or New Year’s – calling it a Western influence.
Some influences we come to understand are definitely worth it.
How immature I have sounded then. With age comes maturity
and knowledge, and now I know not to belittle the day with a callous and
uninformed mind set, when in reality a day like this should exist. It is a joke
that we celebrate and feel special about ourselves every day, when actually
there is evidence of the continuous conditioning women undergo in the hands of
not only society but also other women, including their mothers and mothers in
law. I know of my maid who is extremely upset for having given birth to a
daughter...again. Her in laws including her husband had wanted a son. So she couldn’t
understand my elation on giving birth to a daughter.
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| Image from IWD website |
Elsewhere we hear of women
fighting for voting rights. Still. The twenty first century might have seen many
women being successful at the workplace, but in many places there is no right
to education or even the right to live. In India, we are fighting for building
toilets for women and sending girls to school. The fights
are endless.
Though originally started as
a day to commemorate working women and to identify it as a day when
serious, empowered women had fought for gender parity and equal pay in the work
place, now the day has also come to mean celebrating respect, love and
appreciation towards women. Sadly, the flavour of the day is lost among
celebrations that are meaningful for only that day – women are given free
lunches and are asked to wear dresses of a particular colour scheme in certain
organizations – with no clear idea of what the day means to us.
A quick check of the IWD website lists the theme – Pledge for Parity, and this theme seems very relevant for working women, who I think are the intended group. For people like me, who are self employed or who have chosen to be home makers, I think there are plenty
of options to commemorate the day. I have decided to blog about my views for this day and proudly display the 'I'm Proud to be a Woman' badge, and probably with this blog post hope to get one more woman who used to think like me to change her views.
Here’s an ode to all those women in my life – those who work
tirelessly at home to give a stable and clean environment for love and family
values to grow; those who juggle their work and home life and complain of lack
of sleep or lack of time to spend with your loved one, but still drag yourself
out of bed the next day, only to give a better life to your children or family;
for those who are waiting on the anvils for the right man to come along and not
partake of the jamboree of the Indian wedding system; for those who think that
they don’t need a man to complete themselves and that they are very fine by
themselves; for those who want to pursue your dreams irrespective of the
expectations of their family or society; for those who have made a choice to
give up your ambitions to keep your family happy; for those who call themselves
feminists and take time to think of issues plaguing women these days and
fighting for it and facing public discord or contention for it; for all those
women who know what they want; for all those who are truly celebrating all
things that make us women – compassion, empathy, love and care; for my darling,
darling mother for making me who I am; for me and for you for just being us –
women.
Have an informed and meaningful day, ladies!
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