EQUALITY: An eight-alphabet simple word yet with meanings and relevance unique for every individual. Why do we need equality? What for do we need equality? When will there be equality? How can we achieve equality? All such questions are raised since generations, however the marginal change added by every generation is very minute but yet challenging.
In this contemporary age, where society is transforming from binary to non-binary systems of gender with talking and accepting gradually every identity of an individual. Statistics reveal how vast this gender gap is considering men and women to be the two genders. In the list of 153 countries in examining the Global Gender Gap Report conducted by World Economic Forum, India stood at the rank of 112th in the year 2020. This Gender Inequality is a composite of several factors ranging in every income stratum.
Every year Women’s Equality Day is celebrated on 26th August in lieu of voting rights given to women in US Constitution. But is this all equality should be about? Equality of counting every single vote is prestigious in itself but equality in every aspect should be brought about for the world to be more liberal and happier place for everyone.
Women is preached as Goddess in India and worshiped for all the good causes, but why are those same women denied to step in to worship just because they are menstruating considering it as a mythological belief? Why the woman who must be given extra care and extra support to undergo a biological phase of child rearing and caring is treated as a child supplying machine who is ill-treated until she does not deliver a boy? Why women after qualifying from prestigious institutions and holding abundant talent are confined within homes and have to contribute only ‘their’ best to maintain a family? Why are there wage gaps among men and women for doing the very same task?
There are ample such questions and endless women feeling within themselves these questions about how a society can be so biased and skewed in gender roles. All such in-equal treatment do affect the mental health of an individual. There is lack of self-belief resulting in women giving up and not fighting back for their equality. However, answers to all the questions and to bring a solution to stop asking such “WHY’s comes within households as change can be brought by empowering women from homes where they can pursue their life the way they want to.
Three A’s for empowering women can be Acceptance to all of their choices, Access to all what they want to have without any limitations and Acknowledging their valuable inputs in whatever they do. Let us all celebrate Women’s Equality Day not confined just on the calendar date of August 26th but let us all try to bring that change which can help women all across the globe to celebrate their equality every morning they rise.
