Women's Day Is Not About Homilies and Commercials

The Citizen has placed women and gender rights as crucial to our own development in the space of news. We believe, and very strongly, that women continue to be discriminated against and the situation instead of becoming better seems to be sliding back to a point where abuse---verbal and physical---does not elicit the response from the establishment (government, opposition, media) that it should. And yet we are today celebrating International Women’s Day, an opportunity it seems for the political leadership to indulge in the usual homilies about the equality of women, and for the media to use the event to garner full page advertisements. And of course for the corporates to see what they do not really believe in---the equality of women, as is evident in their top hierarchy of management.

The security of women is of primary importance. And is not on the agenda of any political party, as the sniggers in India’s legislatures indicate when a member cracks an offensive, sexist joke. There is little concern about the fact that in the capital of India there is not a single woman using public transport who has not been groped, teased and molested. There is hardly any response to the fact that women become victims in their place of work, with power being used by the boss ---be a honcho or a contractor at a construction site---to subjugate the women employees. Rape remains a threat a woman regardless of age, lives with on a daily basis with the police and the administration and indeed the bystanders who often witness such abuse, becoming an accomplice to the violent violation.

Despite the fact that the world has issued advisories to their citizens against visiting India because of this sexual assault that is becoming commonplace, the response here is at best a shrug of the shoulders. This response encourages those who target women, be it the young college girl Gurmehar Kaur for speaking of peace, and against violence on the University campus. The dissent did not limit itself to counter arguments, but went straight into her space with a dirty personal attack, threat of rape, and death. In an environment where young people are arrested for little more than posting a cartoon against a politician on their FB pages, the threats that drove the young girl into hiding have elicited no response from the government or the police. And the threats remain, even as the trolls justify this behaviour, with no condemnation and action from the political organisations they claim to support.

This encourages the behaviour that goes into making women insecure, and vulnerable. It is sad that on this women’s day instead of celebrating the progress made in different sphere, we find that the clock has been pushed back for the girls in India in that security has emerged yet again as the first issue. As it is only when the girl is secure that she can strike out, study, work, dance, paint, write without worrying about her basic safety as she tries to claim her space, and her rights in her march forward.

So while we join the world in celebrating the Woman---as indeed The Citizen does on a daily basis---let us not flip the dirt under the carpet, but recognise the need to move urgently to make our women secure. Even if this does not bring us the advertisements and the beauty/fashion commercials!