I was running late for work on 8th March, like I am late on writing this post. It was quite the ordinary day actually.
I was hogging on breakfast, vowing to get ready in time tomorrow.
Midst the house bell rang, and my father got up to see who was at the door…It was our driver bhaiya. My father handed him the car keys and a few routine instructions and resumed whatever he was doing. I was almost finished eating.
Now there may not be something peculiar about this, unless it was set up in a conservative and highly patriarchal environment.
For starters, I wouldn’t be going to work and I would have been expected to answer the door and do the running around. And perhaps, be the last one to eat breakfast.
Later when I reached office, I, along with other female colleagues, were welcomed with a rose and a chocolate, and a simple greeting — Happy Women’s Day.
I like the idea of being celebrated, but the concept of being celebrated because I am of the opposite sex, I couldn’t help but wonder what is the big deal? Now, before I am thrashed for being an ignorant, spoiled kid; I know, that my dis-connect with the zeal of celebrating women’s day, had less to do with the empathy-bereft attitude but more to do with the values ingrained in me. Well, it took some introspection.
My conclusion was, the reason it all felt so normal in the morning, and weird to be wished Women’s Day is because my parents,friends,peers, colleagues and bosses choose equality.
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of having both women and men to choose equality and practice decision making for themselves. That promotes independence of a person and not only a gender group.
My parents treated me as a person, minus the lens of a gender. I have worked with male colleagues past mid-night during an internship and there was no hint of malice. In my current job I just finished a project where I was the only girl in a team of 10. Nothing about that felt different. In fact, the project manager would equally ask me what I thought about our methodology and approach and how could I make it better.
My female friends are equally encouraging. They would never live by a stereotype and say, we are only meant for a particular task (read domestication). We are mid-twenty somethings, unmarried, living in rented apartments or with our parents, but independently. I grew up with my mother working and driving us around... My father picking me up from sleepovers and parties. All this has felt normal. People around me, family and friends, irrespective of the gender, made all this seem the ordinary.
Put differently, they made me feel equal in rights, choice and freedom. And that’s exactly what each of us need and we can provide each other.
Call it my luck, and I am grateful for this, that I have been surrounded with such people. That doesn’t mean that I am not aware of the gender disparities and violence taking place against women — the wage gap, harassment, molestation; heck! Delhi is stereotyped as the rape capital of India. Sadly, this is true for womanhood world-wide (with exceptions).
This is why, I reiterate that we need to surround ourselves with individuals — men and women both — who make us feel equal; not giving anyone the power to limit our goals and dreams because of a particular gender we belong to. As an individual, I should be able to make my decisions.
For this, have the courage to support what is right. Empower all those around you who continue to feel these limitations (and not just women), because there is nothing bigger than hope and a spark of courage that you can gift someone and nothing more important than continue believing in equality. And not genders.
That is what matters.
