Summers are back in Delhi and hence the mornings are really pleasant. My husband and I decided to give our laziness a break for a few days, and walked to our society park to play badminton.
A clear gender differentiation is what hit me, as soon as I entered the park. It was evident that exercising, push-ups were only for the men folk. The ladies of the area were content walking or at the best jogging. In the park full with almost 100 people at that part of the day, there were only 2 ladies playing (me including).
I felt uncomfortable playing, because of the preying eyes of the men who wanted to pump up their chests and was clearly upset with the presence of a female there. All the thoughts of “women empowerment”, “I care a damn”, and “wake up to the new reality” egged me to finish my game and leave the park with a feeling of satisfaction and pride.
This 30 min early morning episode got me thinking. If I, a woman, could feel uncomfortable playing in an educated Delhi society, then what about others? What can we do? How can we change this mind-set?
Hold on, I told myself. Am I not reading too much into this? What am I worried about? Women are not free to play comfortably or the fact that women are not playing at all?
I was inside my house all these years, and there would have been only 1 lady playing there. I went there and added to the count. Someone would have seen me play today, and who knows the count increases to 10 soon. I just need to do my part- study, work, manage home, play, exercise, dance, write- everything that I like to do. And the count of women in all these fields would increase.
I don’t have to do a mass movement or become a social activist to raise the voice against women discrimination/empowerment. I just have to be me.
Yes, government & corporate policies for women would help. But they won’t help, unless the individual wants to get helped! We have corporates giving maternity benefits, eased working hours etc. to help women manage their family. But how many of us actually avail it? Haven’t we all seen cases where women leave the corporate world altogether because needs of their home are much higher than that of work?
Corporate world is struggling with diversity at senior leadership positions. Scholars and experts of this field have written innumerable articles on the issues and how we could address the issues to have a better gender ratio at workplace.
I am helping them achieve this- By being a number, which adds to their female headcount. I resolve to be a woman who would continue to do what she likes to do, so that other women of my society can quote me as a number and example during their gossip sessions. I hope their daughters see me- a working mother, who plays and dances, and laughs and runs- and get inspired to do the same. She would add to our count.
We have all got inspired by Mary Kom, Indira Nooyi, or even Patricia Arquette’s wage quality speech at Oscar’s. If they didn’t choose to do what they did, this world would have had lesser number of such inspiring women. However, we don’t always look at celebrities to inspire us. A neighbor, an aunt even our mother- they have all helped us get some impressions of women in our mind, and we strive every day to achieve them.
Women empowerment is such a misconstrued term. I don’t need empowerment; I have enough of it already. But I do know there are a larger population of women who needs protective policies to help them achieve their dreams. However, it all begins from self. No policy or program would help us be a force to reckon with unless we want to.
Hence, my dear women, if you can read this, you surely can add to the count of working woman. Just stand there, as a number, in any field. And someone somewhere would get inspired by you.
Pic Courtesy: unsplash.com
Be the first to comment