International Women’s Day was recently celebrated on 8th March across the world. As is usual, there was a lot of noise around the day, with many brands adding to its commercialization. Now how many of us know when Men’s Day is or that there is even a day dedicated to celebrating them? It falls on 19th November and the sad reality is that it is not celebrated with as much fervor as Women’s Day is.
In all the talk of feminism and the mistaken notion that it means to prove that we are better than our male counterparts, we forgot that we were fighting for equal rights. This means equal rights for men too and being fair to them. And I am not just talking about celebrating Men’s Day.
When I was in my teens, girls were taught to be careful of their behavior. While I don’t fully support the restriction, in most cases it came from a good space – of allowing teenage girls to understand their physical, mental, and emotional changes over the next few years. These days too I see a similar trend – though it is now the concern of the parents for their boys. In this case, it comes from a space of fear and is born of an alarming trend of wrong accusations of misbehavior or of playing the “woman card” wrong.
Let me elaborate on this with some instances.
A boy and girl are in a consensual relationship, which runs its course after a while. The boy wants out and tries to break it off. The girl feels insulted and accuses of rape.
In a work environment, a customer is wrong and her actions are putting other customers at risk. An employee asks her to correct herself and when she doesn’t pay any heed, has to be assertive for the sake of all others. The customer plays the “woman card” and accuses him of misbehavior.
A marriage has gone sour and there is the custody of a child involved. The wife lodges a false case of harassment and infidelity against the husband and his family. Just for good measure, she insinuates sexual abuse of the child. What is worse, just to strengthen the case she also accuses a man from the neighborhood who had tried to help her but then withdrew when he knew of the false accusations.
An older gentleman gets into an argument with a young girl who is his neighbor. The fault lies with the girl and she knows it. To cover up her mistake, she turns and accuses the gentleman of sexual misconduct. What is more, the parents blindly support her. She is encouraged and repeats this multiple times to get out of situations.
In all these instances, I can see an alarming trend of women misusing the support that society and the law offer to get them equal rights. If we are strong women and are talking about feminism, let us learn to fight for what is our right and not to bring the other person down. In fact, in a recent study across countries, 51% of the women felt that the fight for equality has gone too far.
In my recent blog on what feminism means to me, I spoke about how we can influence change. We must also consciously
- Fight for Equal Rights. This means rights for all living being to live with dignity.
- Play fair. Women can’t climb up by trampling men.
- Support what is right and stand up to wrong. Do this without a gender bias. Only then will we will have an equal world.
- Be appreciative of the help you receive from a man. There is no shame in acknowledging the people who helped you grow.
- Share responsibility equally. It is not just about asking for equal rights but volunteering to take on responsibility too. Split the burdens of chores, finances, and concerns so that one person does not carry the load.
When we talk of women’s equality, let us fight to bridge the gap in education, pay, choice & other important things and not trivialize the issue. Instead, if we focus on bringing men down to prove we are better or right, we are actually discriminating against them. The world will be back to where it started, with just the genders interchanged.
This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla in collaboration with Mads’ Cookhouse.
This is the correct mention of feminism and everything we fight for . Equal rights don’t mean we superseding men on everything rather of equal rights and have the right to execute them without any distinction.
Equality in everything is a utopian thought. We should strive towards it for sure. I believe women are not at par right now, but having said that using the gender as a tool to get everything will not create the balance.
You’ve raised such important points and with the right examples. Equality should be sought in opportunity, choice and freedom, but the victim card that comes out at the drop of a hat nowadays takes away from the years of pain and struggle real feminists have gone through.
I hear you. On one hand, we have women who struggle for basic rights. And on the other, we have women playing the woman card to get out of sticky situations or just being petty. This twisted view of feminism ends up undoing decades of hard work.
Feminism and Menism are both double edged and need to be respected and handled with utmost care. An equal society should exists without any labels or bias. I agree to many points and examples mentioned by you, but have also seen the opposite where deserving women were undermined due to their gender. Praying for a better future where these biases cease to exist and equality prevails.
I completely agree with you. Many women play the ‘women card’ and victimmise men. I have known some men who have been personally affected by this behavior. And when we speak of empowerment, I always say that balance is important. Tilt on any side is unfair to the other side.
This is enough proof about where is equality. Well somehow I feel men just don’t want to voice out to a day for themselves mostly they wld be calm about matters and again to this 1.
I totally agree with your thoughts. Being a feminist asking for equality does not mean you take away men’s rights. We are working for equal opportunities and many women have started taking advantage of the weak laws and situations to blame the men for mistakes made by women.
I guess I always support the concept of equality over feminism and for that we need to understand our right and how we can improve it. Education and culture are two main things acan change the society and their thought process.
It is true what you said, gender equality is not just with the male tags. Most women don’t want to be treated as equals. They feed on womanhood and become dependent on their husband. Equality doesn’t mean we are equal to men. We are different physically, mentally, and emotionally. We just want equal opportunities or equal salaries.
Honestly speaking we are far away from understanding the real meaning of women empowerment. Women empowerment is not to empower women to take advantage of situations to turn wrong things in their favour. Empowerment is important to be in equal space with equal rights and responsibilities. But unfortunately women in many cases are taking advantage of this so called women empowerment slogan. They still want to get the privilege of being women in work front with early leaving of office in name of family responsibilities , and other facilities in life just because of being a women. The examples you shared in this post are very true and exactly that happens in many cases. In such situations I personally feel the men folk are in disadvantages. So my earnest request to the women world please understand your rights in correct perspective… if you want equal rights as men then do perform equal responsibilities as men and that will establish the true meaning of women empowerment. A powerpacked post which deserves a round of applause.
This blog brings up an important point about the need for equal rights for both men and women. I agree that at times women misuse their rights, but this must be seen as more of an individual rather than an entire gender’s fault- however, I do agree with some of the points you have mentioned- equality first and foremost.
I agree with the male point of view. Just like our society feels that women should do all the household work and childcare, I often believe that our Indian men are overtly burdened with the responsibility of bread winning and being the handyman. It’s all about shared responsibility.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a woman too, but I don’t think gender equality is really a need. I guess what we need more is respect for each other. Let’s face it, there’s nothing that’s equal in this world no matter where you look at and no matter angle you look in. But with respect, no matter what gender one is, no matter what occupation one have, no matter what circumstance each of us could have, we could all live in peace and equally be respected by one another.
Women who speak up and fight for their rights are not trying to bring down anyone else, they are simply advocating for themselves and their right to be treated fairly and equally. It is important to remember that the fight for women’s rights is not a zero-sum game where one group’s gains come at the expense of others. Instead, we should strive for a world where everyone has the opportunity to thrive and reach their full potential regardless of their gender.
We should understand that feminism is not about bringing down men or misusing the support provided by society and the law, but rather about fighting for equality and justice for all. It is important to continue the dialogue and work towards creating a world where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.
That a splendid post you have written about standing up for what is right without gender bias and I too think it is important to be humane.
I agree with you – the value of celebrating women empowerment must be measures in terms of equality with men, not oneupmanship on them.