"History is always written by the winners", they say and it really is true. We today live in a society which is totally divided on the basis of religion race or caste but most important factor of this division is GENDER. As we go through the pages of the historical notes and books that have been provided to us we realize that it teaches us an important lesson about how things have worked around us since the very beginning of life on earth. All the knowledge that we gather teaches us three things about this issue. (1) women cannot be equal to men, (2) some women are special who with great hard work are able to achieve what only men can, (3) or lastly some of our greatest intellectuals in the society might say that there cannot be a common basis upon which they both can be judged.
From the initiation of human life on earth we are taught that the nature has given separate roles to both men and women. Earlier, men were considered to do all the hunting and gathering of meat and any other work that required muscle power. The ones who failed to do so were hunted down by the very animal they tried to hunt so this basically lead to the formation of an army of men who could hunt and gather food properly "survival of the fittest" as they would say. Similarly women were asked to take care of the household chores like taking care of the children or collecting woods or berries from the forest. Now just like men this developed a special kind of ability in women. the ability to differentiate between closely related objects for example, there are two types of berries in the forests both of them have a similar appearance but one of them is highly nutritious and the other highly poisonous. Now the women who were good with differentiation were able to find the nutritious berries and the ones who were not ate the poisonous ones and failed to survive leading to a formation of an army of women who were good with description.
Today, as we have seen, these differences have been substantiated with many psychological and social experiments pertaining to the life style of men and women. But what they fail to address the problem at hand, the problem of equality. The inhumane oppression of women has lead to massive movements amongst our society to give women an equal amount of respect for the work they do. The problem of oppression has lead to such a great extent that even the elitist members of the society are forced to go through it. If we look around us we get millions of examples, like women not being paid equal to men even if they are at the same designation or a male actor of age above fifty is asked to play a role with a heroine who would be in her early twenties and the most shameful part is that the public actually enjoy their chemistry justifying this oppression. But is not it really true that this kind of difference only exists because we say that HISTORY or NATURE has always been like this? an experiment was conducted at the United States of America and the Masai tribe considered to be the most fearsome and aggressive tribes of the world. Through some simple activities and some complex machineries they came to a conclusion that women were less competitive than men (This conclusion is wrong and you will realize how as you reach the conclusion) .
A lot of steps have been taken to improve the condition of our women in the society, giving them reservations in education providing them with special seats in metros are some examples of it but are these methods really effective? Protective discrimination is a facet of equality agreed but can protective discrimination bring about the much desired equality in the society? Women today in a conservative country like India are asked to wear the clothes that society accepts or make friends that society accepts and to the extreme live the way society has asked you to live. After putting on such boundations on them after asking them not to go out of their houses at night because it's not safe, is it enough to give them these special provisions to get them a status which would be equal to them? No it isn't. If women are to become equal to men they have to be given a chance to prove themselves on grounds that are fair to both men and women and then they should be judged if they really are capable to be equal to men. Why can't women run our administration our countries? Why cannot a man marry a girl and then move to her house from his mother's house? Why cannot a women go out and earn for the family while the men stay at home and take care of children/ when we ask such questions we realize that these things may sound very nice but it's not actually possible in real life. The truth is It is POSSIBLE ! a small village called KHASI located in India is already following this tradition where the traditional roles that have been assigned to men and women have been interchanged. The experiment that was conducted in the U.S.A and the masai tribe was conducted in this village with the same set of activities and the same complex machineries but this time the results were different! men were considered to be less competitive than women and it was concluded that women were able to carry out all the administrative activities in an efficient manner. Just a change of roles has brought so much change. This brings us to a conclusion that women can be equal to men provided the same psychological help and the power.
In the end I would like to conclude by saying "na teri hai ye zameen, na hai ye asmaan is zami ka.....tujhse hai ye zamana naaki tu is zamaane se hai" (the earth doesnt belong to you neither does the skies belong to the earth but, this society in which we live is existing because of us not the other way round). Society was created to fulfill all humans desires, to communicate and carry out life, thats how it should always be like! The history that we read today was sadly written by the winners of that time i.e MEN. Out of certainty I say that the history the coming generations would read would be very different and inspiring.
- Rtr.Anurag Mishra
Vice President
Rotaract Club of Delhi Janak
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