Happy Woman’s Day!

For my Wishing Tree installation at Kala Ghoda festival I received one WISH many times.....to have a SON before the world came to an end. Daughters...well, they just arrive anyways....as if!

Every woman is someone’s daughter however wanted or unwanted. My elder daughter had asked me why people did not like to have daughters after watching a short film on female infanticide. Barely six at that time she had begun to understand things I thought she would not so soon. My little girl at five had asked me why she did not have a brother while most girls in her school had one and I told her that we asked for only two baby girls from God.  

Today I dote on my daughters but I too am guilty of nurturing a desire to have a son when my second child was to be born because like every conditioned Indian I too believed that an ideal family constituted of a brother and a sister. It’s a confession to all my readers and today I feel relieved. But let me tell you I am not guilty of an infanticide. I never even prayed for a son. I never ever asked for sex determination test. So much that when my second daughter arrived my aunt was shocked to know why I never went for such tests. I was always against such prejudices and I thought educated women do not need to subjugate to try and produce only male babies.   

But education has nothing to do with this great Indian desire for a son. We Indians, rather Asians are obsessed with the want for a son. Our traditions and rituals from birth through marriage till death are not complete without a son. Our blessings are ‘doodho nhao pooto falo’ and we are conditioned to pray for our brothers, our husbands and sons. We have dedicated festivals like Karva Chauth and Ahoi Ashtami for the husband and the son respectively. Our daughters are a burden for us. They are so called guests at the parents place and sadly even at their permanent home at the in laws their presence is not acknowledged without conditions.  Of the various ‘Conditions Apply’ dowry is one practiced by one and all. It seems like a fine of sorts as if you produce a daughter you are liable to be punished for it. You can bail out only by giving hefty dowry. 

It is hardly surprising that the missing girl child from the villages of Punjab, from the families of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have resulted in alarming sex ratio. At some places there are only four girls for every ten boys born. Wonder what would diminishing numbers of women in the already male dominated set up do. Even with the present numbers, the status of women is not truly liberated or empowered. An average woman can not make a choice be it education, career, job, marriage or bearing a child. Would women ever seek that place of dignity in the society, have a voice and decide for themselves if their tribe becomes lesser every year? More so, will there be a civilized society with so few women? Check out the plight of women in Haryana.

Just a few women in high rise positions in the cities do not define empowerment. And what kind of empowerment. If a lecturer in a government college says she can’t afford to have a second daughter and she must have only a son, our education has not achieved much or there is something seriously wrong in it. Actually speaking, a look at the rhymes and the other story books of elementary education reveals the truth about it that nothing is being changed at the grass root level of education, that the stereotype gender bias is reflected in everything from education to media. A serious campaign by the government of India on elementary education, Aayo School Chale Hum, has a focus on a boy and a girl at the end. While the boy says he would like to be pilot and girl says she would want to be a teacher. Sounds innocuous, is it?  Well, not really. When I heard my daughters, that time just 4 and 5 years, discuss that girls do not become pilots, I was surely disturbed. If only the film makers could defy the stereotype and made the girl make a difficult choice we would have set a whole generation of young girls thinking that they too can. It is no longer only dolls for girls and cars for boys. It is a matter of opportunities. Girls have proven in science and technology and mathematics is no magic to them. 

If the statistics are any indication then we need to sit up and take note of it. My educated friends tell me that it doesn’t really matter in this age and time. Well friends, check out the statistics and look around you. It is not difficult to find families with two girls and a third son among the educated middle class. Because an average Indian family craves for a son till they reach their grave yard. Else how do you explain people with grown up daughters or marriageable daughters ending up having a one year old baby boy? Some say they had to because they need an heir to their large inheritance.  Imagine the plight of a girl that despite Supreme Court giving her equal right to all the parents’ possessions our society still thinks a male makes the suitable heir.

From men to women of various cross sections of society we have invented various reasons to suit ourselves and we justify the need for a boy in the family. An educated young lady talks very pragmatically that her daughter wants only a brother and that her husband feels that in old age they must have a place to go to, so they must have a son. Mr. Singh has a huge inheritance so he needs a son to pass it on. Mrs. X says dowry in her community is a big menace so she would not want to have a daughter. 

The only lady who said she missed having a daughter was also because she would have loved dressing up a baby girl and she had only sons. What a weird reason to have a daughter as if daughters were rag dolls. There is so much more to a daughter if one realizes that a girl, eventually a woman, shapes the society. It is so much important to raise our daughters with security and confident. Educating them does not mean imparting degrees alone it means teaching them to be independent thinkers and decision makers. Daughters need to be respected in their own homes first for them to learn to live with dignity at their in laws or any where else in the society. 

Whether a woman is working or not she must be allowed to make independent decisions. Sadly we have no respect for and no recognition to the role of a home maker. A lady at home is ‘just a housewife’ who is not allowed to comment on financial and other important matters. So even when it comes to her own health or having a baby the choice is forced on to her by her family. It is important to understand emotional and physical needs of women. Just as it is important to have a woman in the family, it is important to have daughters in the family. As for the ideal family definition it is important for a child to have a sibling, brother or a sister.

The male chauvinism and the lewd and lecherous male attitude forces people to think about the security of their daughters. The safety of women is one major cause for concern. But can not having daughters in the family absolve us of our responsibility towards women?  Men who do not respect a girl or a woman on the road do not have any respect for the women in their homes. It is my observation and not without a base. So even those who have sons must teach their sons to be more respectful and sensitive towards women in general, women in their lives, women in their work places. 

And women, learn to respect yourself and your tribe. True celebration of womanhood would be when we would celebrate the birth of a daughter, first or second, yours, mine or someone else. 

Darlings, Happy Women's Day!!