Shabana Azmi talks about why it is important to celebrate Women's Day
Shabana Azmi
Ranbir Kapoor.
Shabana Azmi
Gift your woman a diamond on I n t e r n at i o n a l Women's Day to show her you care" jumps out the advertisement from newspapers,magazines and billboards on and around 8th March. It bothers me that International Women's Day is becoming like Valentine's Day – an opportunity for merchandise sale. Personally, I'd prefer
flowers to diamonds any day! Let's not reduce what is a symbol of women's long struggle to achieve equality into a marketing gimmick...
On the other hand is the oft repeated remark "Every day should be Women's Day, why just one day? We don't need this tokenism!" I reject this view. I don't see it as tokenism. I think it's important to celebrate Women's Day because it brings focus to the issues we need to look at closely but often do not.When we look at gender indexes around the world we find that for all the strides women have made,there is an enormous amount of ground that needs to be covered. In developing countries and especially in the subcontinent, women suffer from lack of access to equal opportunity in education ,health,employment in the formal sector. Even in the western world we find very few women at
the senior management levels in large organisations. The rules of the game need to changed so that women can participate in the decision making process.
India is a country that lives in several centuries simultaneously and our people encapsulate all the contradictions that come from being a multi cultural, multi religious society– especially in the case of women. Our president,the speaker of the Lok Sabha, the leader of the ruling coalition, the leader of the opposition are all women but it is also true that female foeticide is still practised; it is also true that the number of women we lose due to pregnancy related issues annually is the same as having 400 airplane crashes in a year! Can you imagine what the reaction would be were that to happen! Governments would fall but because these are poor rural women who are dying, nobody pays any attention.
When we celebrate International Women's Day we salute those who have struggled to pull women out of the abyss of a patriarchal society.But it also must become a solemn moment for introspection; and an opportunity to rededicate ourselves as a nation, to provide the freedom that women deserve and need. My primary identity is that I am a woman and I celebrate International Women's Day in sisterhood! I look forward to a world in which women, when empowered,will transform the notion of power itself so it becomes about sharing and creating partnerships rather than about the powerful dominating the weak.
On International Women's Day I salute my mother for the values which she imbibed in my sister Riddhima and me. She taught us by example that men and women are equal. In fact in my case I believe that Riddhima had an edge over me because she is a girl! I wish that for every girl in India. would like all parents to give their daughters an edge over their sons. We need to give the girl child equal opportunity so she gets a level-playing field. I am happy that Mijwan Welfare Society( MWS), an NGO in Azamgarh UP, founded by Kaifi Azmi Saheb and now run by Shabana Azmi and Namrata Goyal,is working to transform the lives of girls in rural India.
Today's girlchild is tomorrow's empowered woman. In the film industry too, things are changing. Today's heroines are far more free to lead the lives they wish to.
– Ranbir Kapoor ,As told to Shabana Azmi.
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