EMANCIPATION & EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN

Female forces roughly constitute half of the human population. Initially they were supposed to be weaker physically and certain occupations were not in their domain. Now there may be hardly any avocation/profession, which they can’t successfully try for and get them. They are physically and mentally fit to compete with male counterparts and occupy almost all positions in education and employment. Nowadays one keeps hearing and reading in the media that they excelled boys and gentlemen in particular exams and fields. All over the globe women have started participating in large numbers and increasing percentages in political activities, economic spheres and social movements. At the same time it is also true that compared to the males the womenfolk still suffers innumerable difficulties and hardships and since before birth until death in different societies, nations and sites. For ages they were confined to homes and hearths, agricultural forms and cattle sheds. It may a take a few more decades to share the fruits and burden of men folk on 50:50 basis in all their activities. The gestation period involved in their emancipation & empowerment depends directly on the material progress and educational standards of the women population in an economy. It may take a few more decades in a developing economy like India and Bangladesh. A time period of, 15 years is easily required to prepare a generation of women to become educationally fit so that they all can economically prosper and lead a comfortable and worthy life. History is a witness to this phenomenon and economic forces are a testimony to this reality. Broadly speaking there are two sets of factors associated with the women-folk and their destiny one set of factors indicates the predicament and plethora of social atrocities they are forced to live with till the end. The second set of factors refers to such forces that delay or obstruct their economy empowerment. Social crimes normally committed against womanhood are as follows: a) Female infanticide b) Discrimination against the girl child in nutrition, health and education c) Physical abuse and assaults like rape, eve teasing etc. d) Dowry deaths e) Divorce, destitution and desertion f) Lack of old age care. Apprehension of subsequent hardship and lack of awareness and understanding of true aftermath on the part of parents – both educated and uneducated lead them to avoid female children if possible. Instances are aplenty wherein mothers have ensured the deaths of their girl babies soon after the delivery by some means or other. Strict legislation coupled with vigilant enforcing agencies can to a large extent prevent such tests revealing the sex of babies inside the wombs and such female children being done to death deliberately after their birth. Draconian and drastic measures like compulsory T.T. operation to follow in case of such tests and infanticide can go a long way in checking this obnoxious and anti-social behavior on the part of conniving medicos and culprit mothers. The preference and the patronage the boy-child gets in the family at the hand of mother and father at the cost of a female – child can only be tackled when the parents are morally and psychologically educated for the purpose. The awareness can come only gradually when educated girls become eligible mothers after sometimes.. The day the Parents realize that, male or female, both sex are equally important in social life the girl child will cease to get discriminated on the basis of gender. It is also possible in the foreseeable future that women may start extracting a price for their scarcity because the rate at which sex ratio diminishes is astonishing. Invariably it is realized in some sections that female children look after their aged parents in a better and more caring fashion and that compared to male children and their spouses. Equal attention is needed to the girl children in the terms of nutrition, medical care and educational requirements. When the public sector and the governmental set up are in no mood to discriminate, the family set up on Indian soil should be mend its historical anachronism and bend in favour of equality between to sexes. Physical assaults and insults to the women-folk from childhood to late 50’s and 60’s have become the order of the day. Very few females would have escaped from this menace in one way or the other. Gender attraction, eagerness to display one’s arrogance and attachment to the opposite sex misplaced notion of superiority or one – up – man ship on the part of certain males, uncontrollable animal instincts or fatuousness towards fair sex and, over and above all these male chauvinism are the factors that lead to physical assaults on girls and women of our society. Deterrent punishment and watchful law enforcing functionaries speedy justice proper encouragement to expose the wrong doers and anti – social elements can to a great extent control and prevent such occurrences for a better and peaceful living of women with their progenies . Rape against the will of a person proved beyond doubt should end in capital punishment or life imprisonment lest the females are doomed for ever with a feeling of dejection and depression. The duty of parents is to ensure that the girls are protected till their marriages from all sorts of evil designs and circumstance both inside and outside homes. Teasing on the roads and public places should be taken very seriously and instant punishment to the culprit in public made legally tenable can go a long a way in instilling the fear in the minds of road side heroes. Scale of greed or need varies from person to person, time to time, community to community according to the circumstances and situation prevailing among individuals. It is therefore futile and determines the extent to which a person is entitled to in the form of dowry from the girl’s parents. Dowry came into existence on account of certain weakness in certain communities or castes. One reason may be that eligible and marriageable boys and scarce in number compared to available girls in a given situation. Second reason could be the arrangement devised over a period of time for one time settlement of girl’s claim over the property of parents vis-a-vis the boys / brothers in a family. Third reason was perhaps to compensate the incapacity of women as an earning member in the newly created nuclear family. All said and done if anything is forcedly extracted from the family of a bride or the newly-wed daughter –in-law either by the husband or his relatives should be condemned in no uncertain terms and the actors punished severely so that such incidents don’t occur again and again. Crimes related to dowry are quite sensitive matters and need an expert and expeditious handling with a view to enhancing the prestige of law-enforcing agencies in the eyes of low- abiding citizens as and when such cases are reported and investigated. In Indian Ethos motherhood is revered and respected more than the fatherhood. Nation, river, earth etc. is prefixed with the term “Mother“and not “Father “. It is therefore, an irony of sorts when one experiences the pitiable fate and plight of females as a child, as an adult or as an aged person undergoing torture and humiliation due only to the fact that they are vulnerable and exploitable in the eyes of corrupt males. Beauty is in the eye of a beholder the love of beauty is a joy forever. Beauty I associated with feminism. Beauty is sometimes compared to roses for its variety of colors and fragrance. Such a rose of female beauty should be enjoyed, admired and protected but not trampled with. The latter trait shows man’s wickedness, narrow mentality, meanness and stillness. Except for some extreme cases of ugliness every person in the robes of a female looks pretty and charming in her own style, shape and strength. It is a mundane reality everyone is aware of. How else would one explain the instant attention of a hundred males – young and ole alike – towards a female figure passing through in the vicinity. Probably every other female save his wife is a thing of beauty for many a middle – aged and elder citizen in this world. May be one or two percent of males can alone claim to have neither had sex with a female other than their validly wedded wives nor have ever attempted to entice a female other than their better halves in their lifetime. Well that is the reality one confronts while entering the 21st century. Human species are fast moving towards a social order in which single parents are going to be in a majority like in the West – married and divorced several times before a person bites his / her due in the end. Bondage or relationship between males & females – to be precise between the husband and the wife seems to be based of late on flimsy and fanciful or circumstantial and whimsical grounds which mostly become the reason for their separation, divorce or desertion. Little bit of freedom, parental affection, familial fantasies filial happiness are some of the positive results of an average family life enjoyed and incorporated by the children under the care & protection of sincere parents. When the childhood is disturbed, the adulthood suffers from an incalculable damage and leads to an unnatural life-style. Life is becoming quite mechanical day by day mostly in urban and semi-urban centers. When it moves fast and several opportunities do exist for a person to go astray and destroy family ties or ignore traditional values, families are bound to break and individuals bound to lead the life of a single parents in a larger percentage in the days to come. As the vital statistics reveals, the females are bound to live longer than males with the result more and more old women are bound to depend on their nearest kith and kin. In the absence of husbands or caring children, the aged women would certainly join the ranks of neglected and destitute. Old age care has thus become an important necessity one can’t simply wish away or ignore. And the days are not far off in poor and most populous country like India where this problem is likely to get aggravated and develop into a big epidemic. Whatever little savings elders make for their old age do normally end up in eroded values inasmuch as inflation is expected to continue its tentacles as usual and take its toll. Hand to mouth existence is going to be the order of the day, more so for women, as explained in previous paragraphs. A thoughtful planning and highly motivated action can only solve their problem in future. Except for a few pockets and a few communities like in Kerala where property devolves on female successors, in the rest of the country & majority of communities in India male members of the family succeed the property. From the day one the women are supposed to depend mostly on father ,brother ,husband or son in the family for her livelihood. Although it might lead to some unwanted and intolerable developments in the eyes of males, as pointed out in earlier paragraph, the economic improvement or independent means of survival is likely to liberate them for the better and enable them to like equals in the society, community and the country of their birth and choice. Economic independence comes from education and employment. Equal opportunity, if created and sustained, would certainly empower women without fail. Females occupying higher position in public sector /private sector employment have proved their mettle in all ways –be it the quantum of work-load, sincerity, time allotment etc. whereas in lower categories women have not come up to the mark in work places like factories, government offices etc. on some pretext or other. It is also true they are quite successful in small establishments and shops, manufacturing centers and agricultural operations in the countryside. If they are able to ensure productivity of work to male counterparts in white -collar jobs, the day is not far when they would snatch not less than 50% of jobs in every sphere of economic & social activity. Emancipation &empowerment of women in India would necessitate the fulfillment of following conditions by 2020 AD on a sustained basis:- a) Enactment of law & its enforcement for prevention of a test determining the sex of baby before its birth. b) Capital punishment for commission of infanticide. Free and compulsory education for girls up to 10th standard with scholarships for tuition, uniforms & text books. c) Provision of free mid- day meals in the schools. d) Public trails of eve-teasers & instant punishment by honorary magistrates . e) Capital punishment for rapes after in –camera proceedings on the basis of summary trails in the presence of female juries. f) Compulsory partition of parents’ properties among male & female heirs. g) Dowry deaths to be probed initially by family courts before they are referred to session courts for trails. h) Family courts to adjudicate on the status of widows, divorces, desertion, &destitution deserving state’s help rehabilitation. i) Establishment of old age homes –both paid and unpaid by NGOs with state’s help in every district & big town in adequate numbers. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++