International Women Day 2015 – UN Theme

International Women Day 2015 – UN Theme

International Women’s Year is celebrated the world over on 8th of March every year and United Nations adopt a theme every year. Last year in 2013 the UN adopted the theme “A Promise is a Promise: Time for Action to End Violence Against Women” but I feel that the promise remained a promise not only in India but throughout the world society dominated by men. If we go by the UN themes for the previous years and analyze the the condition of women nothing appears to have changed. Let us examine the issue threadbare:

Disparity Starts from Day one:

I, being a member of number of discussion forums on the internet, posed a simple question to the audiences, who could be fathers or mothers, as to know their wish to have their first baby as boy or girl? Most of the would be parents or grand parents wished it to be a Boy. Everybody knows that it is not their choice to have a baby boy or a baby girl. But still there is craze for boys. God and nature try to balance the natural phenomenons on this earth and as per Sir Issac Newton’s law of probability if we spin a coin in the air then the head and tail will be in the ratio nearing 50 : 50 and it might be 49 : 51 or 51:49 if there is no cheating or no trick is used. Here also the probability of Boy and Girl will be around near to 50 : 50 if sex determination tests are not undertaken and the parents have no option to abort the embryo. Thanks to the ban on sex determination tests in my country that this disparity from the day one is diminishing with every passing day.

Human Psychology:

If the girl child is the first child of their parents then the baby girl gets due attention of the parents but if it happens to be 2nd , 3rd or subsequent girl child the baby girl remains neglected falling prey to malnutrition,   lesser education etc. In an effort to have male legal successor, the parents either used to go for sex determination tests or ended up with 2-3 girl children. The question of legal succession has many socioeconomic drawback of its own. In the past it was considered to be a natural duty of the boy to look after their parents and there was prevalence of Joint Family System, in which every parent felt secured for their needs after getting aged.

Government Sponsored Incentive Scheme: 

The Government had come out with many incentive schemes for the girl child in the past like Dhan Lakshmi Scheme by Center, Bhagya Lakshmi Scheme by Karnataka, Ladli Lakshmi Yojna by the state of Madhya Pradesh, Girl Child Protection Scheme by AP, Ladli Scheme in Haryana and  Delhi, Raj Lakshmi Scheme by the state of Rajsthan, Balika Samridhi Yojna of Gujarat, Beti Hai Anmol  scheme of HP and so on as the list is long.

Despite new themes developed and mooted by the United Nations on the occasion of International Women’s Day on March 08 every year since 1996. 2015 Theme being “Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture it!”. So far despite the best efforts by the national governments, no body has bothered to analyze the underlying reasons to know the need of themes and and social development schemes for the fairer sex. The reasons are both – Social and Economic. Even a single well drawn and planned step towards overall Socioeconomic development of the large populations will redress even the issues of the girl or women.

Modern Society:

During the last century the role of women in the society has changed altogether. Previously the women played the role of dedicated mother, faithful wife, loving sister and daughter in addition to other relationships origination from the well knit Hindu Undivided Families.

There used to be “Dowry System” which was taken as an evil. Know the same is replaced by the amended succession act in which daughter can claim her rights to the property of the parents as legal heir. Dowry was just a compensation to the girl child in lieu of her share in property.  We and only we are responsible for making the mockery of such a beautiful Hindu System when the society became greedy for dowry to the extent intolerable. Who is the sufferer? Again it is women to suffer! Previously it was in the name of dowry and now the focus will shift from dowry to share in property to be inherited by the women from their parents. As physical divisions of the properties may become difficult the society will see a mass scale adjustments through intricate legal procedures as the pious institution of lovely family will be overshadowed by materialistic legal procedures. Future Societies will have to decide what to opt for out of a) Bond of Love and affection or b) fighting each other for material things AND the major question of dividing the love and affection of the parents or their physical custody will remain unanswered. If the parents are living with one of their sibling, then others may contribute financially but will be deprived of getting blessings and love and affection of their parents.

Women’s Liberty:

Due to women’s liberty ( I am not against women’s liberty) in the times to come the society will have to pay a heavy price for open society with relation getting changed like clothes thanks to the modern theory of working wives. The basic set up can not change as even working wives will have to share the major pie of the home maker and care taker. Now what to talk of baby girl child even baby boys will not be getting due attention in the shape of compulsory breast feeding, the biggest source of immunizing the babies, by the mothers.  Working wives, commercial teachers and materialistic world will make this world emotionless, dry and leave the future generations to beg for love and affection, which can be provided only by mothers, sisters, wives  to the needy sons and daughters, brothers, husbands. Let the women come forward to say good bye to professional and bread earner’s profile if they really want to enjoy a healthy, wealthy and happy life. Readers will appreciate that what applies to Peter may not apply to Paul and what is true for USA may not hold good for India or what may be true for India may not apply U.A.E. or other countries like Uganda and Africa. We have to think about women’s liberty according to the local conditions across the globe for which we need to have country specific, region specific and locality specific laws in phased manner to reach the top. If we try to jump from first step to the roof there is every possibility of accidents.

Where we went wrong:

When we make any laws, schemes or rules then the same are made in a generalized formed to be applied equally to all. Where as it is my personal feeling that framed laws are misinterpreted to grind ones own axe. Deviations are necessary evils to bring about the changes for which laws are made. Now take for example reservation for women in jobs, as elected representatives or somewhere else. Do you feel that the desired benefits reach the particular section of the society for which the laws came into being. Benefits are cornered by the vested interests and smart people. While making legislative changes the laws should also come in BETA stage which should be made legally enforceable only after getting the desired results otherwise such laws which can not yield results be fully scrapped from the Statue. There should be some minimum criteria say achievement of at least 80% results when a law under beta phase of testing may be considered to be added to the statue after minor changes so as to get  improved the results better than 80%.

Author Proposes Pledge on International Women’s Day 2014

• Do not interfere with mother nature. Mother is the alternative name for Care.
• Do not differentiate between Boy and Girl . Nurture boys and girls equally. Both are part of future generations.
• In a family set up, the women should take care of home and men should become bread earners. In rarest of rare circumstances the women may undertake jobs for smooth set up of a happy family. Women, capable of shouldering responsibilities of men, be known as Reserve Force of the society to take care of the institution of family in case of need  even by the society or nation.
• Education and Health Care be equally provided to Men and Women.
• Respect women as she is the mother, the creator of this beautiful world full of love and affection.
• Take pledge to take care of women as brother, father, husband.
• Never exploit women as she could be your daughter, sister, wife or mother.
  

Know these interesting facts about the meaning of Woman?

• ‘Lady’ has ‘Lad’ in it.
• ‘Female’ has ‘Male’ in it.
• ‘Woman’ has ‘Man’ in it.
• ‘Madam’ has ‘Adam’ in it.
• ‘She’ has ‘He’ in it.

Readers are requested to add their views as comments. Come forward to shape the future.