If you are active on social media, then you would have by now seen, shared, complimented Barkha Dutt’s Women in the World Summit video. If you haven’t yet seen it, then here is the link.
The social media is applauding Barkha for her statements to the presenter where she says that she has a problem with the narrative that was being built around issues of women safety in her country. She continues by saying that Nobel laureate Amartya Sen says that incidence of sexual violence in US and the UK are much higher than India. And when America hasn’t had a woman president, India had a woman leader four decades ago. She goes on to say that America is the only country where there is no paid maternity leave and India has and how we are progressive about abortion and reproductive rights.
The small 1.5 min video clip which is lauding Barkha Dutt’s stand is a good thing to see. However, the better thing to see and acknowledge is the rest of the video (watch here) where Leslie shares interesting statistics about gender discrimination in the world and specifically in US.
- In New York, a girl’s body was signed by the rapist
- 97% of the rapists in US have not spent a single day in prison
- 7 million American women have been raped
- 1 in 4 college girls in America are raped
This got me thinking and I explored the internet for more statistics. Not only a rape, the entire gender discrimination is a global issue and it not only affects the developing nations but the developed nations too. Look at these:
- 1% of land is owned by women globally
- 67% of all illiterate adults in the world are women
- 21% of the world’s managers are women
- Globally, 1 in 3 women will be beaten or raped during their lifetime
- 99.3% of women in Egypt had been subjected to sexual harassment
- Europe has more than 25% gender pay gap (I had written about gender pay gap inequality in my earlier post)
The point with all these statistics is that dear Indian woman; it is not your bad luck that you were born in India. It could happen to you anywhere in the world.
India has led the world by the way the public has time and again responded to such issues. Yes, we have a long way to go before we can claim to be safe country for women. But we are progressing-Literacy rates are increasing, women in corporate world are on rise, women entrepreneurship is showing positive signs and women in sports are leading globally.
While a stage like Women in World summit is a good platform to change the perception about India (which can impact tourism and economy), I think the Government of India did do a good thing by banning the documentary India’s Daughter. I had also written about it a few weeks back (link) that the documentary is not going to reduce the number of rapes in India. And I realise today, after seeing the opening statements of the presenter of women in world summit that the documentary is only adding to negative perception about our country globally. We can’t keep sending Indians to every house that watches the video, to kill this negativity.
When we saw the documentary, we all raised voice against the ban, saying this is the reality, accept it, this is the mind-set. And now when we see a Barkha showing a brighter side of our country, we clap for her, feel proud of India. How quickly as a public we flip sides! And again I refer to my post on is it good that public forgets so easily.
India, even in our own minds, shouldn’t be singled out and stamped as the worst country for women in the world. Our women are leading the world in many spaces, despite all these existing problems. Future is only bright and prosperous for us.
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