WOH STREE HAI, WOH KUCH BHI KAR SAKTI HAI

WOH STREE HAI, WOH KUCH BHI KAR SAKTI HAI

   March 29, 2021       Ankur Jangra

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Women empowerment: the two words which we have been hearing for many years. Everyone might know what, why, and how of it but are we doing our best to mark those words into the actions or convert them into reality? Let's see.

Starting from history as we always do. What do you think, the type of patriarchal society we live in today, was it the same since the beginning? Here's a little chronological structure to understand the position of women and the type of society since ancient times.

Era/Time Period	Society	Status
Stone Age	Egalitarian	=
Indus Valley Civilization	Matriarchal	↑↑↑
Early Vedic Era	Egalitarian	↑↑
Later Vedic Era	Patriarchal	↓
Mauryas & Guptas	Patriarchal	↓↓
Delhi Sultanate & Mughals	Patriarchal	↓↓↓
Europeans	Patriarchal	↓↓↓↓
Post Independence	Patriarchal	↓↓↓↓↓

The position of women was not the same as is today. Different archeological evidence shows that during the Harappan civilization, it was the mother goddess who people worshiped. But gradually if we observe, the tables were turned, the fall of women's status started to begin. Major reasons that can be observed were lowering the age of marriages, education was also restricted, and slowly, the importance of their wishes, opinions, and thoughts in multiple aspects began to reduce. 

Moving from history to contemporary times, even today, women lack empowerment in various aspects of life may it be education, freedom of speech and expression, financial literacy, equal wages, political representation, and the list goes on to infinity. Why is it that even today a girl has to think thrice before traveling late at night or going to late-night parties, why is it that a parent always has to think that his/her daughter is safer if she has some known male guy with her, why is it that many places of worship/even houses still discriminate on the basis of menstrual age group of a girl, and why is it that in spite of having so many provisions for equal representation at many places, still, the women are under-represented? 

I am sure there are many more points which each of us can think and add to the list of questions above and probably it will keep on growing. The reason behind this is that we are still lacking/missing the will for a lower level of execution. By lower level of execution I mean starting everything from the scratch i.e start from the day one a baby is born. A parent must nurture his/her child either a boy or a girl equally because that eventually is going to result in the type of a person he/she becomes. May it be brooming of the room, watering the plants, bringing grocery from the stores, playing any type of sport, learning to cook, studying, or any such other activity, a child must be aware that it's not just the responsibility of a particular gender to perform that particular type of a task. Well, I obviously have zero experience in the art of parenting, yet these are a few of the things that the current and coming generation could try to imbibe so that change might pace up.

Keeping the current scenario in mind wherein the cases of sexual abuse, domestic violence, and rape are on the rise, it is important that we do talk about women's safety. The most important pillar in women's safety is the women themselves. Apart from teaching the boys to protect women, it is also important that we empower our women for their own safety too. Women also have the same number of hands and legs just like everyone does, so what's needed is to strengthen her from day one. Nourishment plays a vital role in the developmental process. Phogat sisters might not have won the dangal if they wouldn't have been nourished adequately. And unfortunately even today, most of the females aren't fed adequately in comparison to the males which affects their overall strength and development. 

Some might even argue that why should women learn to fight, why must a woman be responsible to take care of herself, why can't the provisions of government help or why can't the boys be taught to behave in an adequate manner? Unfortunately, today the place where we stand, it is not an individual effort that can help in eliminating the ills in this aspect. A collective effort is eventually needed and if we talk about equality then we must also not forget that the same equality means whatever a boy does so can a girl too. Nevertheless, that collective effort is something we must keep a check on.

Having an individual financial status is also an important pillar for women's empowerment. It is odd and sad that homemaking which is done majorly by women is not considered as an economic activity. So basically a person who is a homemaker is formally having zero income. This is something which we need to get into topics of our discussion. Also, it is important that the participation of women in the labour and working force must increase for which an eventual answer is a good quality education, which would lead to the economic growth of women and eventually that of the nation. 

Lastly, it is also important that we as a society must realize that it's our collective responsibility to support the women around us and make them feel that you are not just a woman, but a Wonderwoman who can fight all odds of society and yet cherish with flying colors, who can juggle the menstrual cycles yet manage to complete all the tasks efficiently, who can stand at the border to protect the citizens of the nation, who can bring Olympic medals in one shot, who can be the CEO of a MNC, who can run a country in times of war or a pandemic, and most importantly one who can nurture a life in her womb for nine long months. Let us come together and work for a society wherein the discrimination between a man and a woman is no more, women are adequately represented in all sectors of our economy and society, women are traveling without any thought of fear, and lastly, our current words turning into the reality that "WOH STREE HAI, WOH KUCH BHI KAR SAKTI HAI😉". Rest the poem sums up everything.

Wo aag bhi h..wo pani bhi hai...

Tum chaho to wo tumhare chote jahan ki rani bhi h...

Wo shanti bhi h..wo aatank bhi h..

Bas sambhalke rakhna wo ghar ki Lakshmi bhi h...

Wo beti bhi h..wo bahu bhi hai..

Wo aurat hai to bhul mat jana wo insaan bhi hai...

Mana ki thodi bholi hai...auro ki tarah kuch chizo me kacchi bhi hai...

Bas yaad dilana use ki uski ek alag jindgi bhi h...

Tum kehte ho wo badal gayi...

Kyuki ab muskan tumhare chehre pr hi nai, uske chehre pr bhi jaruri h...

  ~Tejal Rajput